How can you rely on faith alone?

There has been PLENTY of EVIDENCE for the Judeo/Christian faith, but you, and many other "deniers" refuse to accept the evidence which is plainly before you as it is before us. What do I mean by this? Let me start with the story of Thomas (you know, "Doubting Thomas"?). John 20:19-31 (Please pardon the LENGTH of the quotation... but ALL if it is IMPORTANT to this discussion):

So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be with you." And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you." And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained." But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were saying to him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe."

After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you." Then He said to Thomas, "Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing." Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed." Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.

=== Okay. So here we have... 11 of Jesus' Disciples having seen the Resurrected Christ, plus others, too, like Mary Magdalene. But Thomas, whom I remind you, had the EVIDENCE of Jesus' existence before him for Christ's 3 year "mission," had not seen Him alive.

Even though there were at LEAST 12 other TRUSTED people who had informed Thomas that Christ was risen from the dead, yet he had to have EVIDENCE of it and would NOT BELIEVE the TESTIMONY of RELIABLE witnesses.

But did Christ CONDEMN Thomas for his DISBELIEF? No. Christ came to him (and the others, and subsequently MANY others before His ascension into Heaven) and offered to Thomas the EVIDENCE. And yet, what did Christ say to Thomas?

"Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed."

WHY should we NOT BELIEVE the TESTIMONY (witness) of these people just because there has been 2,000 years between the actual event and today?

Allow me an analogy from rather "recent" history... when the European explorers were exploring Australia and came upon that very ODD creature, the Duck-billed Platypus. I quote from the Wikipedia article below:

"The bizarre appearance of this egg-laying, venomous, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists when they first encountered it, with some considering it an elaborate fraud."

Even the SCIENTISTS and NATURALISTS of the day doubted its existence! Even when faced with undeniable EVIDENCE, these SCIENTISTS consider it a FRAUD. The explorers who returned to Europe with their stories and evidence ... their TESTIMONIES ... were NOT believed until the evidence was SO overwhelming and denial was impossible.

So, today, how different is this situation from that? One day, Christ WILL return, to the "shock and awe" of the ENTIRE EARTH, and "deniability" will then be IMPOSSIBLE.

Why, then, do you doubt the EYEWITNESS TESTIMONIES of THOUSANDS of people who not only saw and experienced Jesus when He lived (and rose from the dead) on earth, but the thousands of Jews and believers prior to that who had witnessed God in His manifestations (I do not wish to waste space elaborating on ALL of them!!)? Are ALL of these people without EVIDENCE? Are ALL of these people suffering some mass hysterical hallucinations?? Are ALL of these people UNRELIABLE in their witnessing?

Talk about impossibilities! The ODDS of all THAT being true are truly impossible!

WHY do you continue to deny the TRUTH, then?

MARANATHA! Come, Lord Jesus, COME!

This is really oh, so simple. If you have faith in something then you test it. The Bible tells you to do as much. It is a book of principles, an instruction on how to live a good, moral life. You try it and see if your life becomes ten times better.

Even in science first you have an hypothesis and then you do an experiment and test it. Surprise, the same thing applies for Christianity. Even a simpleton can see that there is more to life than the measurable quantities of mass, length and time.

I experienced a huge miracle today in my life. That is all the proof I need. I'll tell you this much, faith is greater than material proof. But if you don't have the strength to know that, you cannot confirm it to yourself. God does deeds and that speaks above mere paltry physical evidence. God is concerned with the intangible by moving the spirit which is in all of us - if only you would LISTEN! You cannot possibly know the power God has to effect change and bring that to those who are most in need if you are not LISTENING and OBSERVING life. You are looking right at God all the time, and not seeing God. What part of this world or yourself, don't you think God is BEING? You are expecting, maybe, God to appear in the clouds in front of your very face, in the manner you demand? And, the moment God did that, you would say "It is of the devil!" - or - "I was hallucinating." Even if millions of people saw a great miracle like that, you would say "Mass hysteria" or "Mass Hallucination." The psychologists and the talk show know-it-alls would get on TV and spend countless hours telling people they had been deluded by propaganda, they had been mass hypnotized - anything BUT the truth!

No, you and everyone who thinks like you, would never believe it if you saw and experienced it just as you demand you think you should. And that is exacty why God does NOT do it. You are so set in your ways, so convinced you are right, so blind because you do not see God in everything, that you expect God as something in particluar - an experience of proof you would never accept if God did it for you.

It's what YOU believe in to make your life happy that is important. We are each entitled to form our own beliefs and follow what is important to ourselves.

No one is "right" no one is "wrong". We believe in what we understand is right for ourselves.

If you want to believe in a god or gods, that's fine, if you don't then it's no one's business except your.

Some people are happy to have faith in something for which there is no evidence, but some aren't. It's all just a personal decision.

Be happy with whatever you decide. Don't be influenced by others, no knows 100% what is real what is not real, what is the truth, what is not the truth when it comes to belief systems.

Both Christians and Muslims believe in Allah. They also both believe in Jesus but Christians believe He is the Messiah and Muslims believe He was a prophet but not the Messiah.

So they mostly agree on these things but you still have to decide whether or not they are right.

I agree with the guy who said "faith is blind". It really is. You don't know if you're right or wrong but it just doesn't matter. Believing IS seeing even though some can't see what you believe, understand? Some people don't get it, some people do. Whatever the case, those who do are happy and those who don't are happy. I just leave the matter alone, ya know?

If you read the news last week, a dad was sentence to 22 years in jail for taking his daughter to faith healing, which caused her death. This man had faith in God's power to heal his daughter, but she died although she could have been easily cured by medicine.

Conclusion: You have to rely on reason and logic, because faith clearly doesn't have any influence of reality.

Christians believe in the triune God.

Muslims believe in Allah (God) and Jews in God.

The triune God is God/Christ/Holy Spirit all working together.

Faith is knowing that you can never know everything, but knowing that certain things are real, whether or not you can see them. You cannot "see" radio waves, but you know they are there. People of faith, through the millenia, have never "seen" God, but they know He is there.

How these billions of people have Known God is the great mystery, and one worthy of pursuit.

At the same time you have faith that you are the right one and don't believe in that. So you yourself rely on faith.

I don't believe that. In order to have a belief you have to have faith in that belief. It's no different from one to the next. I'm Agnostic, but yet that is still a faith in itself. I am not putting you down, I am just saying you have faith in what you believe. Even science. For you to believe that is fact, is to have faith in it. Science is what you are told and proven, but do you really know. It's really not that different. Your fact or belief is not always someone elses.

The plain and incontestable answer is it is impossible!!

Anyone saying it can should give up working. Lock themselves in the house and pray for god to supply the food, pay the bills and cure them when they get sick!!

It would not take many weeks for their death to prove it simply does not work!!

It really is sad that christians make such wild and silly claims!!

Agreed.

I could decided to believe in anything...that does nothing to make it real.

Reality is a subjective interpretation.