So, you think that it is rational to believe that virgins can give birth and that people can come back to life after being dead for more than a day and without modern medical intervention, to pick some of the most universally accepted doctrine of Christianity?
As a Catholic, I would say that I believe one particular virgin gave birth, and one particular man came back to life after being dead for more than a day. And as a professional software engineer, I see no conflict with affirming that and the other statements of the Nicene Creed, because having examined all the evidence available to me, the Gospels seem like an accurate account of the life of that particular man.
What are called "miracles" are simply disruptions of natural progression by influence of something outside of or above nature. There's nothing scientific that states that there is nothing outside of this black box we call nature other than a simple creed.
> What are called "miracles" are simply disruptions of natural progression by influence of something outside of or above nature.
How do you know that is a thing?
> There's nothing scientific that states that there is nothing outside of this black box we call nature other than a simple creed.
Claiming something to be true only because it has not been disproven is a fallacy known as shifting the burden of proof. Believing something based on a fallacy is not rational.
Miracles are not the root of why I consider Christianity to be rational. They're a possibility; a side-effect, not a proof.
One of the foundational arguments I have is - our existence. We have no business being here, the mass we're made of, the energy we use, the time we experience, the big bang that started it all, the heat death that is coming, the couple-dozen constants that make our reality possible, and the very credible answer to it all found from one tiny nation in which one man claims to be God, and more perplexingly, does the exact opposite of what any other man claiming to be God would do - rather than climbing to the top, he surrenders his life and dies. The unexpected answer to the thousands of accounted years of animal sacrifices that the Tanak was pointed to. Despite being written over thousands of years by dozens of authors, the Bible is consistent in its message.
I'm simply leaving the possibility of their being more than nature open and finding that opening filled. That's part of why I find it rational.
> Miracles are not the root of why I consider Christianity to be rational.
That's not how this works. If you make the claim that some system of beliefs is rational, you have taken on the burden of proof that central claims of that system of beliefs are rational.
> They're a possibility; a side-effect, not a proof.
No, they are a central claim of the system of beliefs that you claimed to be rational.
> I'm simply leaving the possibility of their being more than nature open and finding that opening filled. That's part of why I find it rational.
Could you define what you mean by "rational"?
As for that middle paragraph of yours ... I'm sorry, but that mostly suggests that you haven't even tried to understand the counter-arguments. It's a pile of well-known fallacies that really shouldn't be that hard to figure out if you cared. Those arguments have been used and refuted for ages.
I think it's rational to acknowledge there are things science can explain and things it cannot.
E.g. science cannot prove nor disprove the existence of God nor the afterlife.
Faith is a basic and universal part of life. Why? Because we cannot know (with absolute certainty) the future.
When you get into an airplane, do you know for certain you'll get to your destination safely? No. You weigh the odds and choose whether you want to take that risk. Taking a risk is going by faith. We have to take risks in life because again, we don't know the future.
So it is with getting married, accepting a job or even sitting on a chair.
When a Christian believes in God, they are taking a risk that they may be wrong and God doesn't exist. When an atheist does not believe in God, they are taking the opposite risk, that God does exist.
On this point we all place our bets and when we die, we'll know (or not know anything at all)
> I think it's rational to acknowledge there are things science can explain and things it cannot.
Yes.
> E.g. science cannot prove nor disprove the existence of God nor the afterlife.
That depends on the specfific god claim.
> Faith is a basic and universal part of life. Why? Because we cannot know (with absolute certainty) the future.
That's a false equivocation. "faith" has two different meanings. One is roughly a synonym of "trust". That is what you are talking about here. The other is the religious meaning, namely a justification for accepting as true a claim despite complete lack of any supporting evidence whatsoever or in the face of contradicting evidence.
> When you get into an airplane, do you know for certain you'll get to your destination safely? No. You weigh the odds and choose whether you want to take that risk. Taking a risk is going by faith. We have to take risks in life because again, we don't know the future.
That's a continuation of the false equivocation and completely irrelevant to the concept of religious faith.
> So it is with getting married, accepting a job or even sitting on a chair.
And more false equivocation still.
> When a Christian believes in God, they are taking a risk that they may be wrong and God doesn't exist.
... or that they may be wrong and Allah or Vishnu or Zeus or who knows which god actually exists.
> When an atheist does not believe in God, they are taking the opposite risk, that God does exist.
How is that a risk?
Also, you have given exactly no reason why it is rational to accept those doctrines of the Catholic belief system as true that I cited.
Even if unlikely, given that we might postulate this as asexual reproduction caused by some super rare genetic mutation, wouldn't it be disingenuous to say that it can't happen?
> ... and that people can come back to life after being dead for more than a day ...
Again, even if unlikely, couldn't we postulate the resurrection as an event akin to the origins of life; as the ingredients in the right place at the right time but for a person?
> How is that relevant to the question of whether it is rational to believe it actually happened in that particular instance?
If there is evidence for it occurring, then yes that would be rational, regardless of how unlikely it seems for an event to occur.
> How is that relevant to the question of whether it is rational to believe it actually happened in that particular instance?
Forgive me, it seemed that you were dismissing the virgin birth and the resurrection as irrational because you considered such events as not being possible or to unlikely to occur.
> Is it rational to accept as truth something purely because you can postulate it?
No. You can postulate reasons for and against miraculous reports, but it is not rational to believe that some proposition or its negation is true unless there is evidence for it.
> If there is evidence for it occurring, then yes that would be rational, regardless of how unlikely it seems for an event to occur.
Which isn't an answer to the question?
> Forgive me, it seemed that you were dismissing the virgin birth and the resurrection as irrational because you considered such events as not being possible or to unlikely to occur.
I am not dismissing them, I am asking how it is rational to consider them true.
> No. You can postulate reasons for and against miraculous reports, but it is not rational to believe that some proposition or its negation is true unless there is evidence for it.
Correct. So ... how is it rational to believe that either of those Christian doctrines is true?
I acknowledged as much. I mistakenly didn't see you as asking "how it is rational" but as asking "how could it be considered rational?". This is why I hadn't answered your question and instead chose to note that such events haven't been proven impossible.
> So ... how is it rational to believe that either of those Christian doctrines is true?
There is historical evidence for those events occurring, and there are hardly any counter claims that amount to more than just speculation.
If that same kind of evidence were presented to you about a figure in a different religion, would you agree that that figure also was born to a virgin or came back from death?
What if the same kind of evidence were presented about some other person, not related to a religion? Would you agree that that person was born to a virgin or came back from death?
> So, you think that it is rational to believe that virgins can give birth and that people can come back to life after being dead for more than a day and without modern medical intervention, to pick some of the most universally accepted doctrine of Christianity?
It's perfectly rational if you accept the idea of non-materialist interventions in the world, which I think a Christian would. Materialism is an assumption.
> If a man sees a river run downhill day after day and year after year, he is justified in reckoning, we might say in betting, that it will do so till he dies. But he is not justified in saying that it cannot run uphill, until he really knows why it runs downhill. To say it does so by gravitation answers the physical but not the philosophical question. It only repeats that there is a repetition; it does not touch the deeper question of whether that repetition could be altered by anything outside it. And that depends on whether there <is> anything outside it. For instance, suppose that a man had only seen the river in a dream. He might have seen it in a hundred dreams, always repeating itself and always running downhill. But that would not prevent the hundredth dream being different and the river climbing the mountain; because the dream is a dream, and there <is> something outside it.
>what i think mostly irrational in Christianity isn't the belief in the accident of semen finding its way after non-penetrating sexual encounter.
That's not what Christians believe. They believe that Jesus was conceived within the Virgin Mary's womb directly by God, no semen involved. That's the unavoidably irrational bit.
>What really puzzles me is how strongly that belief in that semen accident drives Christians right into the desire to burn witches and, when they cant burn them outright, prohibiting gays from the "joint" filing option on the 1040.
Because the Bible says so. For witches, Exodus 22:18 -- "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." That's it. One verse.
Regarding homosexuality, it seems to be a combination of extrapolations from the Bible declaring homosexual sex and extramarital to be sinful, and the belief among conservatives that allowing legal parity for homosexual couples is both an attack on traditional cultural ideals and Christian morality.
