Famous Scientists who believed in God

[Guest ninhao]

Read the article in the above post for clarification. There are a great many great intellects in Christinity.

 

Hello Gray Wolf. Also we should consider the predicted limited sample size of those who believe.

 

Mat_7:14  Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

 

 

Mostly it's self satisfaction that leads to lack of faith.

 

2Ti 3:1-5  This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.  (2)  For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,  (3)  Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,  (4)  Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;  (5)  Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

 

 

[gray wolf]

I think the case is that people of intelligence rely on reason and evidence a great deal and think faith is inconsistent with that. As CS Lewis pointed out, Christianity is very odd as religions go. It is somewhat counterintuitive to the natural mind. As it is written in 1 Cor 1:27 God uses foolish things to confound. The gospel does not demand certain intelligence. It is available to people of all abilities.

Edited October 24, 2013 by gray wolf

[Guest shiloh357]

I think the case is that people of intelligence rely on reason and evidence a great deal and think faith is inconsistent with that. As CS Lewis pointed out, Christianity is very odd as religions go. It is somewhat counterintuitive to the natural mind. As it is written in 1 Cor 1:27 God uses foolish things to confound. The gospel does not demand certain intelligence. It is available to people of all abilities.

The irony in all of that is that the Christian faith is both rational and evdentiary in nature.   All true examples of  faith, even in secular contexts, are  based on evidence. 

[gray wolf]

Other than Scripture, what evidence is there? I believe it can be rationally apprehended, but it is all predicated on belief in the Bible.

[Guest shiloh357]

Other than Scripture, what evidence is there? I believe it can be rationally apprehended, but it is all predicated on belief in the Bible.

All of the claims of Scripture are rooted in historical and geographic fact.  All of the converging lines of evidence are found in a setting of real places, people and events that are historically verifiable.

[gray wolf]

oops

Edited October 25, 2013 by gray wolf

[gray wolf]

I agree that the places and and people historically existed (yes, Jesus as well). It is a question of the teachings, the miracles and the claims. Some of the things described are difficult to literally understand and are counterintuitive. there are many books that contain historical events , places and people, but how do we know if all story is accurate?

Edited October 25, 2013 by gray wolf

[Guest shiloh357]

I agree that the places and and people historically existed (yes, Jesus as well). It is a question of the teachings, the miracles and the claims. There are many books that contain historical events , places and people, but how do we know the overall stories are accurate?

That is a question that doesn't really have a short answer, lol.  But I will try to be brief

 

Take for example the fulfillment of Bible prophecy.  The prophecies of Jesus that came true is one example.  There are at least 300 prophecies about Jesus and his first coming.  Scholars have calculated that for Jesus to fulfill something like 50 of those would 1 in 10 to the 157th power.  What do you suppose the mathematical probability of  Jesus fulfilling 300 prophecies would be?  And that's just the first coming.  There are even more prophecies pertaining to Jesus second coming!

 

There are all kinds of things prophesied in the Bible by the prophets that happened later and we can historically verify those things like the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians and the Romans.  Coming to more recent times, the restoration of Israel back to her biblical homeland was prophesied thousands of years ago and is being fulfilled right before our eyes.

 

But what about the miracles of Jesus?  Not even Jesus' enemies denied that Jesus performed his miracles.  They tried to attribute his miracles to evil spirits but they could not deny the fact that the miracles DID happen.    Believe me, if they could have found a way to deny that Jesus performed miracles, they would have.  The problem is that when the NT was being penned, many of the people who witnessed Jesus' miracles were still alive and this provided a natural monitor to ensure factual accounts both on the part of the NT writers and the enemies who sought to discredit Jesus.  The only thing their enemies could try to do is silence them.  They could not provide any reason to doubt that Jesus did perform miracles.

 

As far as historical confirmation goes, we have found ancient writings in stone that confirm many of the historical accounts of the Bible and show that the Bible is not only historically accurate, but is accurate down to the details.

 

Modern archeology is also confirming the Bible's accuracy as well.  One reason we know that the NT wasn't written hundreds of years after the fact is that there are descriptions of the landscape of Jerusalem that only a person living in the NT time period would have known about.   So much of Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD that someone trying to fabricate a story would have not had access to important cultural and geographical and architetcural details that fill the Gospels and Epistles and Acts. 

 

Those are just some of the reasons we can trust the Bible.

[gray wolf]

What evidence would you say there is outside of the Bible. Notwithstanding all you said, many are not convinced?

Edited October 25, 2013 by gray wolf

[Guest shiloh357]

What evidence would you say there is outside of the Bible. Notwithstanding all you said, many are not convinced?

Mostly because they refuse to be convinced.  There is no amount of evidence sufficient to convince a person whose heart is so hard they are unwilling to be convinced.

 

But to answer your question more directly, when we look at the universe God has created, it demonstrates an intelligence requrining omnscience to be able to conceive of it in all its complexity and harmony, a omnipotence required to create it and an omnipresence allowing Him to sustain and micro-manage it all right down to the last molecule. 

 

I would have to take leave of my senses to look at the order, predictability, uniformity that exists in the world and claim it is not evidence of its Creator. We as human beings bear His image.  Our creativity, the need to invent, make things is a quality we share with our Creator who made us to be a reflection of Him.  Our abilityt to communicate, to think in absract terms, our innate sense of right and wrong and the intuitive knowledge that we are designed to be in relationship with God are evident all over the world.  There are cultures that have never had contact with outsiders, yet they look for something or someone to worship. There is an innate sense that there is someone greater than us to whom we owe our devotion.

 

God has left His signature on everything He has made, if we are willing to look at it.  Most of the time, people summarily brush any evidence presented aside and then claim that no evidence exists.  The evidence is there.  The fact that a person is unconvinced isn't due to a lack of evidence, but a stubborn pre-meditated refusal to even consider any evidence that challenges their unbelief.