Girls Playing Sports (good or bad idea)

by clash_city_rockers 72 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  clash_city_rockers

  Funky writes:
  

  Sin is that which violates another person's rights. No violation of rights, no sin

  I would like you to define what are those “Rights” and what is the standard for such a definition this I believe would be very helpful in our dialog.

  Funky with a slanderous innuendo charges:
  

  genocide can be justifiable.

  You made this charge, falsely IMHO, but I would like you to document your factitious claim where God in your opinion unjustly whips out a people. God sees sin as punishable in fact if a people of a land are blatant unrepentant sinners against God and their fellow man (ruthless brutal rights violators as you would put it), then God would by obligated to punish such a sinful people. To let sinful people go on in their brutal assault against God and the rights of their fellow man, then wouldn’t it be barbaric for such unjust atrocities to continue? God is just in punishing such monstrosities committed by a such a society. But since you are the expert in making the charge Funky, please give the documentation of genocide. Do you know if there is a chapter and verse from the Bible that you can site or is it something you think is in the bible but can’t reference it because your bible knowledge is so poor? The ball is on your court, site the exact reference chapter and verse and make your charge.

  Funky again is asking really good questions
  

  So people who believe in Jesus don't sin?

  
  I would start off by quoting 16th century protestant reformer Martin Luther’s reformation slogan and biblical truth “justified and yet still a sinner”. When someone is saved they are not delivered up to moral perfection. That is a later eschatological promise when those in Christ have passed away and gone to be with the Lord, and in its fullness in glory at the resurrection. Once someone is save he now has the ability for the first time in his life to fight sin and it’s temptation. At times, and there may be many, the Christian does fail in his fight against sin and commits an act of sin. But the good news for the Christian is that even those sins committed as Christians are too covered by blood of Christ, and he still carries the fullness of imputed alien righteousness that belongs to Christ but was given to him (the Christian) by the means of faith in Christ. The Christian also grows in his Christian maturity or what we would call progressive sanctification. This is when a Christian grows in godliness and the fruits of the Holy Spirit found in Galatians 5 his moral character slowly improves and so does his abilities in fighting sin. Though the progress may be small or slow and never reaches perfection while the Christian is alive he still grows in his progress in sanctification. Every thing that lives grows. If one is alive in Christ then he will grow as a Christian. Romans 6 gives a description of how the new man in Christ is related to God by his new position as a Christian and by relationship of adoption. Romans 7 give a description of a justified Christian and his fight with indwelling sin. Romans 8 gives the full description of the securities that are found being justified and covered in the righteousness of Christ.

  Funky goes on and asks even more crucial questions:
  

  This god had his son tortured and killed so that people who believe without evidence that this event occurred, would be given some sort of hidden information or power whereby they would be saved from "sin" and its consequences. Those who see the contradictions inherent in the story (or have never had the opportunity to hear the story) and refuse to believe in a fairy tale without sufficient evidence are then tortured for eternity by the same god. Why does this god have to punish humans by eternal torture. OK, he's given them a "get out of jail free" card but has hidden it from the majority of the world.

  First of all because God has provided this “get out of jail” card in the form of the gospel message that is so simple that a child can understand it. Second People are convicted and converted in these religious matters not by evidence but by the Holy Spirit. This is not to say that evidence is not important because it is, because the nature of evidence is a historical reality. Let me give you two passages from the bible and explain.
  John 20:24-31
  

  24Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
  But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."
  26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 27Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
  28Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
  29Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
  30Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

  Sure Thomas saw the Lord but it was the Holy Spirit that convicted Thomas of Christ resurrection, because the second half of verse 29 also gives blessing (a working of the Holy Spirit) to those who don’t have evidences.

  Go to Luke 16:19-31 Rich man and Lazaurus
  

  19"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
  22"The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In hell,[3] where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'
  25"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'
  27"He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, 28for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'
  29"Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'
  30" 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
  31"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "

  Now look at verse 30, the rich man is appealing to God to give them a huge peace of evidence to a fact on this particular matter in the Rich Man/Lazaurus story, but God knowing the hearts of men says why waist the time with this evidence. Look, if their hearts where so hard that they didn’t listen to the greatest historical evidence of all “Moses and the Prophets” (basically God’s direct revelation) then how can they be convinced of lesser evidence. They are therefore dependent on the Holy Spirit to open their eyes and transform their heart.

  I do hope you would look at the verses mentions and consider deeply

  Cheers,
  jr

  P.S. Valis, to asume that I don't partisapate in the secular world is purly asinine. The reason I mention this artical is that I am involved in secular culture I am not a retreatist but one who engages the culture. Your assumptioun is every bit as ingorent as it is arrogant.

  tootles,
  jr
• 

  clash_city_rockers

  Womens athletics in it's self is a good and wholesome activity as long as thier is a place in the forfront for the properly defined feminity that God has given women.
• 

  clash_city_rockers

  One more thing Funky,

  once someone is truely saved they will always be saves, perserverence of the saints.

  late,
  jr
• 

  Valis

  It might help clash if you and I existed in the same secular world. Mine doesn't include one that displays a disregard for gay people and their feelings, believes in going off on tangents to make a case for jesus at every turn, or believe that you could foist the biblical idea of gender roles on any informed group of people and get any respect. Call me arrogant if you want, but it seems less complicated and much more secular to me, if you set your bible down in an attempt to reason through any of the mess you have espoused. You've gotten so far from the original topic I doubt this is even an option.

  Sincerely,

  District Overbeer
• 

  clash_city_rockers

  look one of my favorite zines interviewed one of your people a few years back and I found this interview very interesting and inlightening maybe you all can enjoy this interview with Ann Dougles who by the way has way more credentials than you.

  http://www.modernreformation.org/pub/mr/mr96/1996.02.MarApr/mr9602.int.msh.douglas.html

  AN INTERVIEW WITH...
  Ann Douglas
  Terrible Honesty In An Age of Sentimentalism
  interviewed by Michael Horton

  Hailed as "one of the leading feminists of our time," Dr. Ann Douglas is Professor of American Studies at Columbia University and has also taught at Princeton and Harvard. Her highly acclaimed work, The Feminization of American Culture, was followed recently by Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920's. One of Dr. Douglas's main theses is that the demise of Calvinism led to a sentimentalism in religion that shaped the larger society. Although Dr. Douglas is committed to a much broader theological perspective than we would embrace, her critique is trenchant. It is an especially appropriate topic in relation to our understanding of Christ's saving work in our time and place.

  HORTON: You talk a lot about sentimentalism. Is that part of the dismantling process in the 19th century?

  DOUGLAS: Yes, it is. Calvinism had experienced sustained attacks, especially in the eighteenth century, with the founding of such groups as the Universalists and then, of course, the Unitarians. The liberals, headed by Unitarians and Universalists and some Congregationalists as well, began to say as we entered the 19th century, 'No, if God loves human beings, he understands and sympathizes with human beings. He wouldn't ask them to do something or believe something that would go against their own needs or desires.' There's that line in Job: 'Though he slay me, yet will I worship him,' and this was the Calvinistic ethos that the liberals simply could not accept--that idea that God is much greater and larger than our own happiness. Calvinism wasn't saying that God wanted to be cruel, but that his plans are so much vaster and grander than anything human beings can conceive. The liberals could not accept this view of God, due in part to the humanist tradition, but it is also partly commercial: You know, if we've got to sell ourselves now--since the churches are now self-supporting rather than dependent on state funding--is this the adspiel, so to speak, that will best sell our product?

  HORTON: Today, especially in what is being called the church growth movement, we hear, in varying degrees, that we must tone down doctrinal distinctives and meet felt needs, focus on healing and wholeness, and prefer soft inspiration to hard sayings. Soft lights, soft sermons, soft choruses caressing the air, have become the rage. Instead of "Eternal Father, Strong To Save," we sing about walking with Jesus alone in a garden "while the dew is still on the roses," or, in the words of one chorus, "I keep falling in love with him over and over and over and over again."

  DOUGLAS: Right, this is straight out of the liberal Unitarian, sentimental tradition of the last century. Women, by far, comprised the largest number of churchgoers, and they were staffing mission boards, Sunday school classes, and any other church position they could, at a time when they could not vote or purchase property. As writers, moral reformers, Sunday school teachers, and women transformed the church and they wondered, 'Why do we have to have all this theology and an emphasis on sin and the need for redemption? Why isn't the home the model for God? Why shouldn't the things we do and hear in church suit us where we are and woo us where we are, rather than expecting this radical change of heart that Calvinism had required?'

  HORTON: That's an interesting point. A few years ago, Christianity Today ran a cover story on a so-called "megashift" in evangelical theology, from the 'courtroom' model that emphasizes sin, guilt, judgment, and the need for an atonement and justification, to a more 'relational' model. It was a switch from the courtroom to the family room, toning down the tough theology in favor of a more therapeutic approach. Do you see this as in some way the arrival of the sentimental creed firmly within that same evangelical Protestant establishment that ended up leaving liberal Protestantism over these same issues early this century?

  DOUGLAS: Oh, it is. I could quote you chapter and verse of ministers and evangelical women writers and reformers in the 1830's who said exactly the same thing--a sense that we need a more human God, a God who is nearer and will understand us better. It's a tough issue, and Calvinists weren't saying that God is uncaring. The problem with this whole sentimental tradition, which you're describing in the 20th century and I'm describing in the 19th, is that once you drop the idea that God is a judge, you do seem to weaken things. To some extent, my own sympathies lie with the Calvinist tradition, because I have enormous respect for the intellectual and spiritual endeavor of trying to understand a world that, you admit, is not necessarily there just to make you happy.

  HORTON: In the 19th century, the Arminian revivalist Sam Jones thundered, 'God never did throw a javelin into the heart of his Son,' thus attacking the classical doctrine of the substitutionary atonement as insufficiently moral and sensitive. Increasingly, there is this cry for a 'kinder, gentler' God in evangelism. Then you have the 'Re-Imaging' conference of mainline feminists, among whom was one speaker who declared, 'We don't need guys hanging on crosses with blood dripping and all that weird stuff.' As strange as the parallel may seem, is there a connection here between Arminian revivalists and liberal Unitarians that makes today's evangelicals and liberals more similar than we might have thought? In reaction against offense of the Cross, many came to see Christ more as a caring nurturer (a mother, as you say in your book), rather than as a bloody sacrifice. Doesn't this make unlikely bedfellows?

  DOUGLAS: Of course, it is part of the whole thing. Again, it does have to do with that sense that, 'Let's not make all of this pain and suffering.' Surely, one replies, 'Of course, let's not. Faith is also a matter of joy'--something a Calvinist would have believed also. The problem is that there is injustice in the world and there is suffering. By constantly softening Christian doctrine, there is a danger that you are simply going to efface them altogether, and people are going to be left in a real way unguided and left to themselves, as they already are.

  HORTON: So consumerism is all one is left with in this bargain.

  DOUGLAS: Well, that's the danger. I am not on the side of the fundamentalists, but there is a kind of rush toward accommodation these days, to get rid of all the elements that don't suit our own causes. Two things seem clear to me: one, that the liberalization is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future, and that most of the groups that are fighting it are doing so on the wrong front: on the social and moral issues. This seems to me to simply be a continuation of this process of turning God's terms into human terms. I'm not saying they are not important issues, but they are social and political; they are not theological issues. It seems clear that we're going to go on in this more humanized fashion. At the same time, it seems to me that life is such that most people who believe in something, however they describe it, are going to need a faith and a concept of God that includes rather than mitigates or denies the harsh realities of life as we experience it.

  HORTON: This is what you call, 'terrible honesty'?

  DOUGLAS: Well, this is especially in relation to the 1920's, when America's leading artists and cultural figures were still dealing with theological questions, whether Ernest Hemingway, who described his [The] Sun Also Rises as a story about how people go to hell, or F. Scott Fitzgerald, who said the ultimate question was you standing in a white light before your God. These very secular writers were still speaking in terms of saving souls: What constitutes a life lived in the sight of God? In Europe, Karl Barth was launching the Neo-Orthodox movement, a revival of these older views of sin and the need for salvation. How did one explain the Holocaust without an almost Calvinist sense of original sin? Difficult explanations may get in the way of sentimentalism, but they are ultimately a solace because they match difficult realities.

  HORTON: Studies of evangelical seminarians and the laity have shown that, in spite of whatever they may hold officially, when asked whether they view the self as essentially innocent, the findings are startling. Seventy-seven percent of the nation's evangelicals believe that "man is by nature basically good." Is this the triumph of the Sentimental Creed even over the body of Protestants who have at least officially attempted to defend classical Christianity?

  DOUGLAS: Sure it is, because the arguments in the last century revolved around the question, 'Can you really tell me that children are really born sinful?' The Bible, after all, says that the imaginations of man's heart are evil continually. Now I think we all feel that that's a bit too strong, but the notion that the human heart is essentially innocent seems to me to reflect denial rather than optimism.

  HORTON: George Lindbeck at Yale says that the shift in convictions can be measured by the fact that only liberal sentimentalists could swallow Norman Vincent Peale in the '50s, but today evangelicals accept the same message in the form of Robert Schuller. Sermons on sin and grace, with the Cross at the center, are often replaced with the focus on my happiness and self-esteem. Are you saying that positions that would have been regarded as more in line with Unitarian, liberal sentimentalism are now easily marketed in conservative circles? In other words, would someone like Robert Schuller have been considered an enemy of the Faith in the earliest days of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton ?

  DOUGLAS: Yes, very much so. Harvard became the bastion of Unitarianism by the early nineteenth century, but early on that would have been true. The emphasis on therapy is really the big distinction: Do you see faith as therapy? We are moving steadily toward a therapeutic world order. Now, much of this is so admirable. Good therapy has a huge claim, but it isn't really theology-friendly because it's pragmatic. I believe in the Twelve Steps programs. They work. But there has to be some sense that there are other realities out there. Before the therapeutic triumph there was this sense that denying one's desires and one's importance was a sign of character. Getting one's life in order is a good thing, but it is not the only thing--or even the ultimate thing. When Roosevelt struggled to understand Hitler and the Nazis, he was at a loss until he was given a book of theology and was able to finally see in a bit deeper to the human condition. More liberal explanations just couldn't explain Hitler to him.

  I love it when your people write things that we Christians can use to are advantage in the culture.

  super tootles,
  jr
• 

  Valis

  And now for something completely different....

  Sounds like they're some of your people to me. Heaven forbid the modern world use a humanistic view towards the bible. So much easier for you to say "your religion has been feminized" or "you put yourself above god in your worship because you prefer to think of a more human god rather than a one that just tolerates all the pain and suffering..."? It seems to me that clash is taking a much more mysoginistic path now than before.

  Sincerely,

  District Overbeer
• 

  clash_city_rockers

  No, the point of the interview was to demonstrait that the Church (protestant Evangelicalism in America) lost it's doctrinal and calvinistic (MOJO) to crudly put it. To a more feminiezed approch to ministry in the 19th century the having a weak and feble evangelical church in the 20th Century. The only way to recover the church is to go back to the old Calvinistic Doctrines.

  as Ann puts it.
  

  To some extent, my own sympathies lie with the Calvinist tradition, because I have enormous respect for the intellectual and spiritual endeavor of trying to understand a world that, you admit, is not necessarily there just to make you happy.

  this intellectualism is vacuois today in secular thought and sadly in most evangelical churches.

  late,
  jr
• 

  funkyderek

  I would like you to define what are those “Rights” and what is the standard for such a definition this I believe would be very helpful in our dialog.

  The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Reason is the standard.

  You made this charge, falsely IMHO, but I would like you to document your factitious claim where God in your opinion unjustly whips out a people.

  Genesis 7:23 - God destroys everybody in the world except eight people.
  Genesis 19:24 - God destroys everybody in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah except one family.
  Exodus 12:29 - God kils every firstborn child in Egypt.
  Exodus 14:27,28 - God kills the entire Egyptian army.
  Exodus 17: - God orders and assists in the destruction of the Amalekites
  Exodus 32:25-29 - God's spokesman orders the killing of 3,000 Israelites.
  Numbers 16 - God kills 250 Levites for questioning Moses's authority and 14,700 Israelites for questioning the first slaughter.
  Numbers 25 - God kills 24,000 Israelites for worshipping another god.
  Numbers 31 - God orders killed all the males, and non-virgin females of the Midianites.
  Deuteronomy 2 - God orders Israel to kill the Amorites.
  Joshua 6 - God kills all the citizens of Jericho, except for a prostitute and her family.
  Joshua 8 - God orders Israel to kill the inhabitants of Ai. 12,000 people are slaughtered.
  Joshua 10 - God and his merry band of followers slaughter all the people of Makkedah, of Libnah, of Gezer, of Lachish, of Eglon, of Hebron, of "the whole land, including the hill country, the Negev, the lowlands, the slopes"
  Joshua 11 - they slaughter pretty much everyone else in the area.
  Judges 1 - God kills 10,000 Canaanites and Perizzites.
  Judges 3 - God kills 10,000 Moabites.

  There's more if you want it but I'm starting to feel a little queasy. I think I've made my point anyway.

  First of all because God has provided this “get out of jail” card in the form of the gospel message that is so simple that a child can understand it

  Yes, and only a child can believe it because it is inherently contradictory and nonsensical.

  Sure Thomas saw the Lord but it was the Holy Spirit that convicted Thomas of Christ resurrection, because the second half of verse 29 also gives blessing (a working of the Holy Spirit) to those who don’t have evidences.

  That's clearly not true. Thomas believed because he put his finger through the holes in Jesus' hands - because he got evidence. This was a man who'd seen Jesus perform dozens of miracles. I've seen none. Why do I not deserve such clear evidence?

  You missed answering what I thought was one of the most important questions in my last post: Imagine a god who created humans with free will and allows them to use it. They are rewarded if they behave well towards other people and punished if they do not. Would that god be more or less fair than your god?

  --
  Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. - Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
• 

  Abaddon

  Clash, you sid;

  once someone is truely saved they will always be saves, perserverence of the saints.

  Could I have Biblical proof of that please?

  Also, what happens if someone who has been truely saved sins? Say they abuse children? Are they still saved? Is that just?
• 

  clash_city_rockers

  Funky reasons:
  

  The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Reason is the standard.

  
  These are all abstract notions that anyone Christian and non Christian can subscribe to you really haven’t given much of a philosophical explanation (epistemology and so on). If reason is the standard then by who’s reason a lazy one sentence explanation really doesn’t really do your case and those whom you advocate any justice. I mean what you are really trying to tackle are issues that the likes of Rene Decart, Thomas Reed, Emanuel Kant, Hegle, Heidegger, Hume, Kirkdegard, and many other philosophers have struggled over and have failed to explain to it’s completeness. Only the Christian World View can give you the philosophical capital to give an account for what are rights and what is reason. One more note. Reading Ann Ryand is not going to give you any in site. Her philosophy of the glories selfishness is blatantly against any noble idea of protecting the rights of others. In fact if you were familiar with the ideas of the 18th century humanistic philosophers like Hume or Payne, you would realize that these people whom YOU would claim to be authoritative would absolutely repudiate Ann Ryand.

  Genesis 7:23 - God destroys everybody in the world except eight people.

  These people where rights violators. Your against rights violators, right Funky? They where murderers, thieves, committed adultery, coveters, had other gods, blasphemers, ect… you know rights violators. What it the standard of rights the Ten commandments right, Funky. Do you agree with any of the 10 commandments? Or do you agree with violating someone’s rights by robbing and murdering them? So this is not a case of God destroying the innocent. These where guilty brutal men. This was a just judgment.
  Gen 6:5-8 NIV says
  

  5 The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the Lord said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth-men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air-for I am grieved that I have made them." 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord .

  And God’s standard of wickedness and violates rights can be found in Ex. 20:1-17
  Next.
  

  Genesis 19:24 - God destroys everybody in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah except one family.[/quote]
  Again this is not the case of the Lord punishing the innocent.
  Gen 18:16-19:11 should be more than enough evidence to establish the charge of guilt.

  Exodus 12:29 - God kils every firstborn child in Egypt.

  If you would read through this part of the book of Exodus it is obvious that this is an important part of redemptive history for the covenant people of God. In your boot strap legalistic view of salvation you fail to see the mercy of God in deliverance of his covenant people of Israel. If you would read the account it is obvious that Egypt is not an innocent victim. Pharaoh the covenant leader of Egypt was hard and evil and violated the rights of Israel by his continually keeping Moses and his people in slavery. You are against unlawful slavery aren’t you?

  Exodus 14:27,28 - God kills the entire Egyptian army.

  Again these are not innocent victims(this would also goes for the Ex 17 and Deut 2 passage). This is the negative penal sanctions against those who were intended to wipe out Gods covenant people.

  The destruction of God’s own covenant people in the wilderness was due to the direct rebellion and rejection of their God. Remember God has every right to punish sin and evil. Once they violated their fellow Israelites rights and rejected Jehovah, they where subject to punishment of the Lord.

  Joshua 6 - God kills all the citizens of Jericho, except for a prostitute and her family.
  Joshua 8 - God orders Israel to kill the inhabitants of Ai. 12,000 people are slaughtered.
  Joshua 10 - God and his merry band of followers slaughter all the people of Makkedah, of Libnah, of Gezer, of Lachish, of Eglon, of Hebron, of "the whole land

  Again this was a part in Redemptive history where Israel gets their deliverance God shows his mercy and the wicked, those seven Cainanite nations who violated the rights of others (criminals, killers, robbers, rapists, committers of adultery) where justly and lawfully punished. These people where not innocent victims but where ruthless and violent societies. But maybe your are attracted by such people. God also showed his mercy to Rahab and made good on his promise to her so you see God also keeps his redemptive promises. Atheism and other forms of paganism doesn’t give such hope nor can it give any promises except for death and misery.

  Speaking on the simplicity of the Gospel Funky pontificates:
  [Yes, and only a child can believe it because it is inherently contradictory and nonsensical.

  No, Funky as it has been demonstrated it is your reason that is inherently contradictory and self-refuting. You are as inconsistent as it gets. The problem here is that you are just as much against God now as you where when you where a JW.
  Funky posts:
  

  That's clearly not true. Thomas believed because he put his finger through the holes in Jesus' hands - because he got evidence. This was a man who'd seen Jesus perform dozens of miracles. I've seen none

  No, his basis of faith is the same as it is for Christians today as it was for fellow apostles like Peter. And Peter’s faith (just like Thomas) is based on the mercy of the Holy Spirit. Israel got evidence and did not believe but instead hung Jesus up on the Cross. Your misunderstanding on the nature Thomas’ faith cannot give an account for Mathew 16:16-17
  

  16Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ,[2] the Son of the living God." 17Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven

  This was the basis for Peter’s faith as well as Thomas’ cf. Phil 1:29 (who grants faith?)

  Funky asks a good question
  

  Why do I not deserve such clear evidence?

  Like you and me and everyone else we are dependent on the testimony of the apostles and their written account of the acts of Jesus. But this is not just any testimony but the written word of God, which carries with it the power of the Holy Spirit. Just because the apostles mediated these personal experiences with Jesus that we ourselves can’t enjoy, does not take away from the truth nor the historicity of the accounts of Jesus’ life and work.