I think that there is no needed to defending or proving the truth of Christian

[elijah23]

I think I can be content in my sister's MS, if SHE can be content in it.

She can't.

Pray with her.

 

[Pizzaguy]

I think I can be content in my sister's MS, if SHE can be content in it.

She can't.

Of course, maybe that is HER problem and I should concentrate on MY problems.
The point here is that what I was REALLY getting to is that when you make statements like "he's fixed all my problems" without going into detail what you mean, you send a distorted message to those either new to the faith or who are outside the faith.

 

[elijah23]

Of course, maybe that is HER problem and I should concentrate on MY problems.
The point here is that what I was REALLY getting to is that when you make statements like "he's fixed all my problems" without going into detail what you mean, you send a distorted message to those either new to the faith or who are outside the faith.

The Lord HAS solved all my problems. He will solve the problems of anyone who comes to him.

 

[Free]

If I find a book on the ground that has a few stories in it, and at the end, it says, "this book is true" I cannot tell people it is true because the book says it is true.......

As I stated earlier, there are good reasons to accept the Bible as truth. The following video gives some good reasoning in brief and is far from exhaustive:

[video=youtube;pHRP0I2SrVs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHRP0I2SrVs[/video]

 

[Stormcrow]

However, with religion, we are not using a language, such as mathematics, do describe its process such that we can act accordingly. There is no process that can be approximated. Does anyone know any statistic or probability of going to hell? This is something we cannot know, as of yet.

Not all truth can be ascertained empirically. To suggest that all truth must be ascertained by empirical means is to apply a standard by which most truth could not be realized.

Did your parents love you? What is love and how do you know?

Quantify it for us in empirical terms, please.

 

[celo]

Not all truth can be ascertained empirically. To suggest that all truth must be ascertained by empirical means is to apply a standard by which most truth could not be realized.

Did your parents love you? What is love and how do you know?

Quantify it for us in empirical terms, please.

Great point. Things like that do make things more nebulous. But hey, that's why I am agnostic! I really don't know.

My whole point wasn't to show that Religion is wrong, or even that it is probably wrong. To me, that is a foolish and naive statement to make!

I was more answering the OP's question on if Christianity is something that needed to be proved to others, rather than the truth of the religion itself.

I did get carried about and made my posts about my beliefs, my mistake.

But what you said describes what I was trying to say perfectly.

I haven't felt the love of God or any other religion, so I don't know how else to quantify it, let alone say that it is something that could or should be proved!

I feel my parents love, so I know it exists. Sure I could blast off some science about hormones, imprinting, and evolutionary reasons for love to exist. However, it is something that cannot be conclusively quantified, like you pointed out.

EDIT:
But for the sake of discussion, I have changed my mind and will blast off some science! Sorry in advance.

There are some who believe that love can be quantified.

Specifically, one W. D. Hamilton, and those who follow and agree with his theories.

It is called Hamilton's rule, and is a subset of the concept of inclusive fitness. Inclusive fitness is an evolutionary term that describes altruistic motivations and actions in humans and animals. The general equation is as follows:

rB > C

Where r is the genetic relatedness between the recipient and the actor, B is the additional reproductive benefit gained by the recipient of the altruistic act, and C is the is the reproductive cost to the actor preforming the altruistic act. R values would be 1 for oneself, .5 for an offspring, .25 for a nephew, .125 for a first cousin ect.

J.B.S. Haldane described it rather humorously, "I would lay down my life for two brothers, or eight cousins."

Now humans don't consciously factor in genetic relatedness when making decisions. Animals definitely don't do this. Yet, there is evidence that this rule generally applies to humans and animals. (Some of the human data he looked at was inheritances in different cultures, and grand-parental relationships. For example, the people in one study were asked to rank who they felt more loved by, and received more gifts from, between both sets of grandparents. As was predicted, there was consistent, cross-cultural trend in the following rank, from most love, to least.)

Mother's Grandmother > (Mother's Grandfather and Father's Grandmother were equal) > Father's Grandfather.

Notice how this correlates with the level of certainty of genetic relatedness! After all, mommies babies, daddies maybes. The reality is that the only grand parent one can be absolutely sure of as sharing genetics is the maternal grandmother. And vice versa.

This study, while in no way conclusive, was repeated with identical results, and does support some level of inclusive fitness.

So because we are unaware of genetic relatedness, this presents an adaptive problem. The solution, in some schools of thought, is love. Love allows a tangible feeling that will enable us and animals to act accordingly.

This is only one facet of love. The question was then raised, well how do adoptees love their parents and family if the R value is 0? The answer to this is called imprinting. Another way to approach R values is to see if the effect is innate, or if it is learned. It seems the latter is more likely to be the case. An infant will imprint upon those who provide care. A mother and father will imprint upon those who receive their paternal care. During the developmental stages of imprinting, the real factor is the quantity of time and care involved. It just so happens that R values happen to reflect a general ratio of relative time spent during this phase. If one never new their maternal grandmother due to distance or death, then obviously she will not be ranked as being the highest grandparent with the most love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdlupLaD3bk

That video shows a female Leopard encountering, and then caring for infant Baboon, after killing the baboons mother!! Usually, monkeys are the big cats prey. Why would a natural predator decide to love and care for its prey? Humans understand the responsibilities of parental care on multiple levels, but how do animals know who to care for? The idea of "parental love" is necessary to care for young WAY before laws or "morality" came into force (never have in animals). This video shows the side effects of this "assurance of parental care system" aka love. The infant-like behaviors of the baboon must have triggered the parental care system of the leopard.

Another example would be certain species of sharks. Many sharks that give live birth only receive parental hormones (like oxytocin) for a very limited time. In fact, the newborn sharks must leave their birthplace immediately before these hormones expire, after which the mother will feed on her young. So to the shark, the question of "care" and "love" is directly (and short-lived) related to hormones. Once these run out, the mother has no ability to see her young as something to be cared for, rather than her next meal!

Same process of how our pets share a mutual sense of love with their human owners.


So, that's one way to quantify love. It may not be right, and it may even be only a simple and incomplete description of the "love" system God created, but I am inclined towards hypotheses that accurately predict results. Has nothing to do with God really. Only our ability to quantify and predict.

That said, I won't dismiss something because it cannot be predicted or quantified. All that tells me is that either it is wrong, or we don't know how to quantify it. But when there are multiple explanations, and one is quantifiable and predictable, I tend to see it as being more likely to be the case.

 

[wayseer]

Not all truth can be ascertained empirically. To suggest that all truth must be ascertained by empirical means is to apply a standard by which most truth could not be realized.

Did your parents love you? What is love and how do you know?

Quantify it for us in empirical terms, please.

Great points.