World Events
Topic: Believers: What would change your mind?

#	Author	Message
1	Mr X Wed 4/23/2008 4:27a	For those folks who consider themselves religious in the traditional sense (meaning not so much "yes, I believe in spirituality" or whatever, but rather one who subscribes to a particular doctrine and faith)... What would cause you to admit that your particular faith is not true? Couple of examples I've come up with (both pretty out there, so please take it with a grain of salt in the "hypothetically speaking" manner I'm intending)... 1) Aliens from another world visit Earth and prove unequivocally (through carbon dating, and other corroborated scientific means) that THEY in fact wrote all the words in the bible (koran, bagdava-gita etc...) some 200,000 years ago and planted the documents in an effort to examine the effects of religion on a society. 2) Through new advances in medicine, doctors are able to revive an un-tampered with group of corpses which have been deceased for a matter of weeks (I'd say longer but that gets gross, not to mention less possible to be un-tampered with), such formerly dead people having never been informed of the idea or purpose of the experiment...and yet all or most of them return to life and testify to the fact that there is *nothing* beyond. Would either of these two events cause you to abandon your faith? Re-examine it? Or would you reject either event wholeheartedly? Is there any other example you could offer that would cause you to change your viewpoint on god and the afterlife? If so, please throw that in here (I realize that mine are a bit under-thought, I'm sure there are better examples). If not, would you say that absolutely NOTHING in the way of events or proof could possibly cause you to reconsider your religious viewpoints?
2	wahooskipper Wed 4/23/2008 5:04a	If God came to me but he was not, in fact, God...but Alan Funt...and he said, "smile, you are on Candid Camera"...well, then I might begin to question my belief.
3	Mr X Wed 4/23/2008 5:07a	Another potential "would you change" for the christians. What if god himself came down to earth and said "you were wrong about Jesus, he was just a good guy, not my son". Would you then reject christianity?
4	RC Collins Wed 4/23/2008 7:30a	These are interesting questions, Mr X. I will consider them more fully. But off of the top of my head, let me say they appear to get into things like "how do we know what we know" and other philosophical questions. Plenty of people claim experiences with aliens, but are these people really dealing with "people" from another planet or something else? The second example, at first consideration, seems to me to be something that is not going to ever happen. But like I said, let me consider your questions further. In regards to Jesus Christ, Paul writes in the Bible that without the resurrection, our faith is in vain. Proving the resurrection didn't happen would do the trick. There have been several highly educated people over the last couple of centuries who set out to disprove the resurrection and ended up becoming believers in it, however, and this believers in Jesus. But since the resurrection either did or didn't happen in human history (as opposed to "in the spiritual realm"), it is, in theory, something that could be shown to have either happened or not. I'd be very interested if someone from a non-Christian faith could point to something similar as something that would change their mind. I wouldn't expect anyone to bases their belief mainly on something within themselves (like a feeling, or what their heart tells them) to be able to be swayed to unbelief if they are fervent. Changing my general belief in theism is a little more difficult, as it is very difficult to prove a universal negative (like: There is no God). People may believe that, but it isn't so easy to prove.
5	RC Collins Wed 4/23/2008 7:32a	Yuck. My typing mistakes are the result of answering on the fly. Sorry.
6	teddibubbles Wed 4/23/2008 8:16a	VERY Sound answer RC Collins. I am so there with you! and so my answer is the very same as RC Collins. and I think I would have to swim agenst the tide. and say. even if I was wrong.. I am betting my soul on this person Jesus. I love him. and he has given me more strangth. and hope ! than any alien. or other meaning to life ever could.. I only pray I am Found in Him on that day!.. I know I drive people away. on how I am. and am runing over ..on how I talk.. but if you only could understand.. that when you find out.. we are helpless. that nothing we can do saves us.. its the world off your sholders. to have someone../ something.. you truly feel comfortable in trusting .. the road is wide in posiblitys.. but I will take the narrow one way tract. that leads to > MY LORD Jesus! <
7	SoThisIsLove Wed 4/23/2008 8:32a	Hi, Mr X. I just wanted to answer your question. I can quite honestly tell you that there is nothing that would change my mind. Not any of the scenarios that you mentioned, or any others that the rest of my family (non-believers :) can throw at me, either. My faith isn't something concrete that you can quantify and explain by science or something tangible that you can see or hold. I know that probably isn't a satisfactory answer for you, and I apologize for that, but I guess you can say that my faith goes to the very core of my being. I was born with this...oh, how to explain... How about this? A portion from William Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of Immortality": "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy!" I cannot ever remember a time that I have not believed and it's gotten stronger as I've aged. (I'm now in my dotage: 52! :) As it is quite doubtful we'll meet in this life, let's try and have an LP reunion some time in the next (even if you don't believe that there is one) and we'll compare notes, okay? :) Have a great day, Mr X. I appreciate your posts, even though I usually can't add much to the topics (Tokyo, etc). xoxo
8	mrkthompsn Wed 4/23/2008 8:54a	I think the alien thing maybe. There is in fact an argument that aliens influenced major characters in the Bible, and that the "voice of God" was actually the voice of aliens.
9	DAR Wed 4/23/2008 10:28a	I don't think anything would make me change. I'd have plenty of questions, any true believer should.
10	RoadTrip Wed 4/23/2008 11:29a	I don't think anything could change my mind. Unless after death I truly became nothing but worm food. And if that were to happen, I'd have no mind left to change.

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