The Upper Room

HNQ

16:20

1

Q: Did Augustine suggest that the differences between Matthew and Luke's genealogies mean Joseph was adopted?

The Bible says that Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus because Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. However, I have heard that Augustine may have suggested that the differences between the genealogies in Matthew's gospel and Luke's gospel led him to conclude that Joseph...

HNQ

18:14

1

Q: How do Trinitarians reconcile Jesus' words in John 5:31 with the view that GOD the Father / the Son / the Holy Spirit are ontologically the same?

In John 5:31, Jesus said the following: If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies in my favour, and I know that his testimony about me is true. ‘You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it ...

trinity christology persons-of-the-trinity binitarian

Ask Elisha

18:36

0

Q: Can anyone help me translate what these inscriptions say?

dunno if this is the right place to ask (if it isn't, please do tell me!) I've recently visited the Pomposa Abbey, a benedectine monastery in northern Italy near Ferrara, and while visiting I've stumbled upon these inscriptions below a fresco depicting an Hydra. I have currently identified only a...

middle-ages ancient-history christianity church translation

Read Less Pray More

19:45

@curiousdannii I'm unable to ask rational questions to trinitarians again because they down vote without critique. I can't help it that my good questions are unpopular. Can you suggest any means by which I can begin to ask questions again?

I don't think the minority should be silienced.

Matthew

20:26

@Conrado Sorry I'm way late to the discussion, but... really? I don't get that feeling at all (and I have absolutely dealt with trolls before). If anything I might say it seems like he's trying to systematically build a knowledge base on particular topics. I can't think of a single time he's been disrespectful, where lack of respect is sort of a defining characteristic of a "troll".

Note that I'm not bothered by questions about rude things that skeptics say; @Mark is just reporting facts in those cases.

@Conrado While I sympathize, that sort of thing is exactly why we need answers to those sorts of questions.

Conrado

21:05

@Matthew That's good to hear, really; it could be I'm overreacting. It's just that the particular topic all of his posts

have been about over the last while is, from my perspective, a fairly cheap kind of skepticism.

And they don't quite stick to facts; they are clearly based on the assumption that there should be some sort of conflict between reason and faith.

For example, I've seen two cases this week where we were at asked to "suppose that a [faith based position] is trying to convince an honest, neutral and rational person" of their position.

Matthew

@Conrado Sure, I won't say that isn't fair for some of them. OTOH, they are objections that are put to Christians, so the Questions make sense if Mark is, as I suspect, trying to build a rigorous database of responses to such. (The idea that theology and reason conflict is rampant among materialists.)

@Conrado Right. The broader scope of that conversation is whether reason alone is sufficient to demonstrate God's existence. I'm guessing you haven't been following any of the chat in my room, but evidentialism vs. presuppositionalism is a major theme.

curiousdannii

@ReadLessPrayMore The moderators really can't do anything about this. Please see meta.stackexchange.com/questions/86997/…

You may be able to edit some old questions, get them reopened, and then get some upvotes on them.

Matthew

21:21

@ReadLessPrayMore Let's take christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/96495 as an example. As I read it, you aren't asking for someone to defend their position, but are "fishing" for help defending an unpopular belief. Are you really surprised that gets downvoted?

Okay, to be fair, pretty much every question is like that. However, that doesn't change that asking to defend a popular position is going to "go over" much better than asking to defend an unpopular position. Essentially you're searching for an audience that just isn't there. I'd expect similar results if I asked a pro-Darwin forum to defend Creation.

Mark

21:48

@Conrado I'm happy to grant that my last questions are not particularly the most philosophically profound. If you wish, you can take a look at some of the questions I've asked in the past that have provoked more interesting discussions. For instance:

9

Q: Does the "Sniper Firing Squad" analogy undermine the anthropic principle’s objection to the fine-tuning argument for God's existence?

The anthropic principle, also known as the "observation selection effect", is the hypothesis, first proposed in 1957 by Robert Dicke, that the range of possible observations that could be made about the universe is limited by the fact that observations could happen only in a universe capable of ...

probability cosmology existence-of-god intelligent-design randomness

15

Q: Is the surprising applicability of mathematics to the physical world a brute fact, or something crying out for a theistic explanation?

William Lane Craig proposed the following argument for God's existence: For those who are unfamiliar with the argument for God from the applicability of mathematics to the physical world, here is a simple formulation I have used: If God does not exist, the applicability of mathematics to the ph...

metaphysics philosophy-of-mathematics theology necessity intelligent-design

3

Q: What is an overview of perspectives on whether the existence of the Christian God can be established solely through the use of reason and evidence?

Note: I'm interested in the Christian perspective on the question Can God's existence be established through reason and publicly accessible evidence? that I recently asked on Philosophy Stack Exchange. Feel free to read that question and the answers that people have posted for a broader context. ...

apologetics comparative-christianity epistemology existence-of-god natural-theology

9

Q: What are Christian responses to the atheistic argument that God is an unnecessary and overly complicated extra step?

One presentation of this argument is put forward by Carl Sagan: "If the general picture, however, of a Big Bang followed by an expanding universe is correct - what happened before that? Was the universe devoid of all matter and then the matter suddenly somehow created? How did that happen? In ma...

creation apologetics science atheism existence-of-god

17

Q: Is the Skeptic's Prayer a valid scientific experiment?

The "Skeptic's Prayer" is introduced on page 411 of Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith, by Peter Kreeft & Fr. Ronald Tacelli. The Skeptic's Prayer This claim---that all seekers find---is testable by experience, by experiment. If you are an honest scientist, ...

philosophy-of-religion skepticism scientific-method christianity prayer

18

Q: Is Christianity testable?

In a debate between John Lennox and Peter Atkins on the topic "Can science explain everything?", at minute 44:47 John Lennox claims: Lennox: "And the major reason why I believe that Christianity is true is because--and here comes science again as a base--because Christianity is testable." Atkins: "

philosophy-of-religion scientific-method christianity falsifiability evidentialism

@Conrado Fun fact: I accepted @Matthew's answer here, but doing so ended backfiring, as it caused attention to be drawn to his answer and it got harshly downvoted by skeptics as a consequence.

Matthew

@Mark Indeed. On the subject of whether Christianity is true or not, it's interesting to note the correlation of religious beliefs and persecution. About the only thing worse than being Christian in that respect is being Jewish. 🙂

Conrado

22:41

@Mark OK, I'll give them a look (I'd already seen one or two of them) Thanks for engaging here; that has improved my outlook on your approach.

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