Funky writes:
I looked at the evidence for Christ's claims and existence, and found that they did not correspond with objectively measurable reality)
First your interpratation of any evidence is flawed be cause you already set your peramaters of interpratation to reject any evidence from Christ, Your problem was that same as the Rich Man's brothers that Christ said to the Rich man.
Luke 16:27-31
27 "He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, 28 for 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.' "
The lost have evidence but that doesn't save them. Your assuming that faith comes though human accomplishment (evidential and human reason) this was the error of Palageus. Even though Faith in Christ is the most logical and reasonable thing the noetic effects of our sin (through the fall) clowds our minds to eccepted this reasonable truth. Believing only comes by grace. Grace from God enables man to believe the gospel.
As for:
correspond with objectively measurable reality
Are you talking in the same catagories as David Hume?
Sirona,
God is not Fasioned after the imaginations of man nor by his hands. God is TRANSENDENT!
Your god is some sort of cut and paste project out of the immaganations of your heart.
Listen to Paul at Mars hill
Acts 17:22-33
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:|sc TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
29 "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone--an image made by man's design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." 32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject." 33 At that, Paul left the Council. 34 A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.
cheers,
jr
