Einstein: Belief in God 'childish'

Admiral
How in the world is my post a shot at Christianity? Humility in the face of what we don't know is, perhaps, a sideways criticism of faith, in general, as a practice, vs skeptism, in this context, I would agree.
 
Hey Bytor, you beat me to it. It takes a child's attitude to enter the kingdom of God, so I agree with Einstein in that sense. Jesus didn't mean childish as in foolish but as in humble and acknowledgement of need. My kids come to me (or my wife) when they need something. That is what the Heavenly Father wants as well.

As to the reliability of the gospels, I think there is more than enough evidence out there to show that they record faithfully Jesus' ministry. The gospels we have were most likely all completed 60-70 AD and came directly from eyewitness testimony. No one has found a manuscript of Q or any other pre-gospel written document, but it wasn't the custom to hang on to documents like that in that time period. It was common to discard old copies and obsolete documents. It is very plausible based on an understanding of the culture that there were some kind of accounts that were written down during the life of Jesus and just after which were used as source documents for the gospels. The rest of the information most likely came from first hand eye witness interviews and oral tradition based on eye witness accounts. Studies have been done on the reliability of oral tradition that show it was in fact quite reliable.

You may not agree with what the gospels teach/contain but you can't distrust based on transmission error. It simply is not a reasonable stance. You have to adopt a staggering level of mistrust in the documents we have today and place a great amount of trust in hyper-skepticism and speculation. Any documents skeptics use as their basis of belief are much later in time and much less coherent in teaching.

Rejecting the NT is a moral decision not an evidential one.
 
Einstein was not an atheist, and your quote is disingenuous to his world view.

EDIT:

Anastasis,

If I had insight like you while drinking, I'd be an alcoholic. You're a smart dude(tte).
 
Mary Magdalene would be the ancient day equivalent (allegedly).

Hallelujah! I just made a convert! Gadfly, internet missionary.
 
Why is God so hard to find?

He is not lost.
smile.gif



flag.gif
 
I had some guys knock on my door selling brownies or something for their church. I told them I didn't have any cash and wished them luck. As I was closing the door, one of them said "You know Jesus loves you, right?". I said "Actually I'm not christian". He said "You don't need to be a christian to know that Jesus loves you." I said "Actually, by definition, I would have to be a christian to believe that". We went back and forth like that for a little, then he told me Jesus loves me again and left. It was very frustrating. Doesn't have much to do with this thread but I needed a place to vent.
 
That picture of the flaming soul in hell reminded me of a New Yorker cartoon titled "Old People in Hell" which I clipped because it reminded me of myself. The cartoon has 3 old people engulfed in flames saying, #1 "Brr.", #2 "They call this hot?", and #3 "Where's my sweater?" Just wait till you're old and you'll think it's funny too.
 
7 Iron did you have to repost that because you were upset that no one responded the first time? I bet you sat there and clicked refresh for a good while before finally deciding to take another shot.
 
I have heard an evangelist quote from a biography on Einstein that the latter did very much indeed appreciate Christianity. I wish I could have written down both the quote and book title.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top