Expert: Marco - 7/20/2009

Question
QUESTION: hi, my qestion is what proof do you have that the Bible is the word of God,
I would like you to watch these 2 short videos please.
the first one is from a Catholic tv channel interviewing a Mulim convert.

The second one is about scientific miracles of the Quran.

I look forward to your answer, and your opinion of the two videos, i really want you to watch them. The videos are less then 10 mins long, please please watch them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfzFYEOVDgM&feature=channel_page

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2s14T6x5AM&feature=channel_page

ANSWER: Dear Daniel,

I am sorry but I cannot see those videos, but I can answer your first question.

I think that there are some objective elements, distinguishing the different religions (their history, theology, etc.) that can be analysed from a rational point of view. I limit myself to a couple of considerations. In the times when peoples used to worship many gods, represented with anthropomorphic idols, usually associated with natural elements, there were only one monotheistic people who worshipped one God of Spirit and rigorously prohibited any representations of God. This monotheistic concept of God has appeared in history through the jews and every monotheistic religion cannot but acknowledge its roots in the Bible.
There is another importatnt objective element to be considered. Through christianity, an absolutely new concept of divine love has come into history: the concept of a God who loves us so much that He makes Himself man and accepts an atrocious suffering and death in order to save us from our sinful and unhappy existence and lead us to the true and eternal happiness.


Why was it necessary that Jesus suffered so much to save us from our sins? Couldn't He simply save us without being crucified?


I believe that each of us needed know that God was willing to accept such a terrible suffering for us, in order to really trust God. Every man needed that proof of love, and God, who knew this, has accepted to give him what man consciously or unconsciously asked to Him. Jesus had to suffer and die that way to convince us about God's goodness and God's love towards us. It is man's obstinate distrust against God that has forced God to give man that proof of love, the proof he needed to trust God. By His death on the cross, Jesus destroys our distrust and our doubts, and He gives us the strength to believe in Him and trust Him. This means that each of us is personally responsible of Jesus ' sufferings and death. This distrust, this lack of faith in God, as well as the excess of trust in oneself, is just the essence of the original sin. Blinded by his pride, man rejects God's authority and prefers to trust himself, instead of His Creator; man deludes himself to be able to be independent from God, to be the god of himself. But God only is the source of all true good and true love. Man is unable to pursue the true good with his only strengths; man needs God, His teachings, His spiritual help, and so, after his rebellion against God, he gets deeper and deeper into a vortex of sin, which he can get out of only if he allow God to change his evil and impure heart. God in fact loves us infinitely, and He desires to lead each of us to the true life and true happiness, a condition existing only in God. But God cannot tolerate evil and sin, because they are incompatible with His good and holy nature. A deep interior change is then necessary for all of us to reach the eternal happiness; we must be sanctified and purified from all our evil and sinful desires. God has the power to change us but He wants to do that with our consent. Since He has chosen to create man with a free will, He wants to respect our will. Man cannot really accept to be changed by God and he cannot be in comunion with God as long as even a shadow of doubt and distrust remains in his heart ( it must be stressed that such a distrust may exist even without the man is aware of it, at the unconscious level). God had to destroy every shadow of doubt and distrust in our heart and He has chosen to give us the greatest proof of love that may exist: Christ's Passion. Christ's Passion has reconciled us to God because it has uprooted from our heart, our distrust and doubts about God; it has satisfied our (conscious or unconscious) desire and need of a proof of love, so that it has given us the strength to trust God and feel loved by Him.

In summary I think that christianity has introduced into history the highest concept of divine love, and therefore such a concept has necessary a divine origin. Hence the Bible is the word of God.

Since I canot see your video about the miracle of the Quram, let me give you some considerations about the miracle of Fatima.

With the word "miracle" we usually refer to a violation of the natural laws. The point is that miracles are, by definition, exceptional events, which cannot be reproduced in laboratory. Miracles can then be studied only on the basis of the available records. Of course, the judgement about these records is subjective, and all those who do not want to believe in miracles, will always claim that such records are false or wrong. Many miracles have been scientifically studied, and some information is available also on line. For example, information about the miracolous healings occurred at Lourdes can be found here (site in french):

www.catholic-forum.com/catholicteacher/lourdescontents.html

Scientific information about the eucharistic miracle of Lanciano can be found here:
www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html

Personally, I think that the well recorded miracle is the miracle of the sun of Fatima, occurred in October 1917. Some years ago, I read an article on a well known italian newspaper about the miracle of sun at Fatima. I knew nothing about Fatima, except that some children had had a vision of Our Lady. I was really surprised to read that a crowd of 70000 people had seen the sun dancing in the sky for some minutes. As far as the number of witness is concerned, it was the greatest miracle after the passage across the Red Sea! I must say that the thing surprised me so much to leave me rather skeptic.
So I decided to seek more information, and what I have found has convinced me about the supernatural nature of the events of Fatima. First of all, the miracle of the sun at Fatima is quoted also in many different secular encyclopedias, such as the Britannica encyclopedia, where at the item Fatima I have found:

village and sanctuary, Vila Nova de Ourém municipality, Santarém district, central Portugal; it is located on the tableland of Cova da Iria, 18 miles (29 km) southeast of Leiria. Fátima was named for a 12th-century Moorish princess and since 1917 has been one of the greatest Marian shrines in the world, visited by thousands of pilgrims annually. On May 13, 1917, and in each subsequent month until October of that year, three young peasant children, Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, reportedly saw a lady who identified herself as the Lady of the Rosary. On October 13, a crowd (generally estimated at about 70,000) gathered at Fátima witnessed a "miraculous solar phenomenon" immediately after the lady had appeared to the children.

Since 1910, the portuguese government had started a very hard battle against the Catholic Church: many religious orders were expelled and their property confiscated, new legislation banned the teaching of religion in schools and universities and annulled many religious holidays. Persecution of Catholics in the early years of the republic attracted international attention and brought the new political system into conflict with foreign diplomats, humanitarian organizations, and journalists. The (atheist) director Avelino de Almeida of the government (and very antireligious) newspaper "O Seculo" was present at Fatima on October 17, the day when the three children had foretold that God would have given a miraculous sign. The intention was to write an article to discredit the religious "superstitions" of catholicism. The article, published with the title "Terrifying Event! How The Sun Danced In The Sky Of Fatima" can be found on the site

www.ewtn.com/fatima/apparitions/October.htm

In his article, the journalist describes a crowd of biblical dimensions, spread in the fields of Fatima. At a certain point, this immense crowd begins to cry "Miracle! Miracle!" looking at the sun. The journalists describes then an amazed crowd, who cry and pray.

I have tried to analyse these data to see whether it was possible to find a plausible explanation, excluding a divine intervention, but I have found none. No scientifically acceptable explanations exist for such a phenomenon. I do not think it is reasonable to hypothesize a conspiracy of 70000 people, simulating a collective vision. On the other hand, it would not have been possible to hypnotize such a crowd, spread on an area of some square kilometers. Besides it is scientifically impossible, even with the present technology (you can imagine with the technology available in 1917!), to realize an optical illusion like that. Some atheists try to explain this miracle as a banal optical effect; when we look at the sun for a while, we see coloured pulsating spots, or when the clouds move in the sky, they can create the illusion that the sun is moving. Obviously, we all know this, we all have looked at the sun and we all know the effects, we all have seen the clouds moving in the sky. Those who were at Fatima certainly knew this as well. So, unless we hypothesize that at Fatima there were only 70000 idiots, such explanation is not plausible at all. Some then speak about hysterism or suggestion. However, if catholics were all subject to hysteric crisis or they were so easily suggestionable, one couldn't explain why in 2000 years of catholicism there are no other cases of crowds witnessing to having seen such extraordinary phenomena. Actually, there was only the word of three children, and if this was sufficient to suggestionize so much catholics, then whoever claims to have some visions of Our Lady, could easily make a crowd of 70000 catholics to see the sun dancing in the sky. Some then ipothesize that some rare physical phenomenon must have happened at Fatima that day; certainly it should have been a very rare phenomenon! I do not think such ipothesis have any value, but even if it should have been a rare physical phenomenon, the fact that it occurred exactly in the place and in the time predicted by the three children is for me the most evident proof of the supernatural nature of such event. In my opinion, the miracle of Fatima is the best recorded miracle in all history.

I think that faith cannot come only from logic, because to have faith in God means to trust and love God.
I think however that logics and science prove the existence of our soul and the existence of  God and that there are many rational arguments strongly supporting the christian faith.
The explanation of these aguments is rather long and Allexperts allows only to give short answers. You can find such arguments  in the following site

http://xoomer.alice.it/fedeescienza/englishnf.html

where  I analyse the incongruencies of the materialistic conception of the mind, on the basis of our present scientific knowledges about brain and matter.
This analysis points out how the laws of physics  prove that the   brain cannot generate consciousness, which existence implies  the presence in man of a unbiological/unmaterial element. The problem of consciousness is then strictly connected to the one of the existence of the soul and, consequently, the existence of God.
In the first article entitled “Mind and brain...” you can find a general discussion of the mind and brain problem from a scientific point of view.
In the second article entitled “Scientific contraddictions in materialism”
you  can find an explanation of the fundamental inconsistencies of  the  typical arguments used by materialists, such as the concept of emergent, macroscopic or holist property, complexity, information, etc.
In the section called “FAQ: answers to  visitors' questions” you can find the answer to many typical questions, such as "Are there any scientifically proved miracles?", "Does the existence of the universe imply the existence of God?", "Can science explain God?", "Can science establish which is the true religion?", "Can science explain consciousness in the future?", and many others.

I hope this may help,

please ask again if you should need some clarifications,

Your brother in Christ,

Marco


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Ok, come on brother you cant really call that evidence that the Bible is from God, the message you have sent me does not comapare to the amount of evidence you would have recieved from watching the viseos i sent you, Proof needs to be so clear that abybody reading the book no matter how intelligent will know without a doubt that it is from God,

The quran has so many proofs and miracles that i can not mention every thing in 1 message.

I will mention afew

All these miracles occur one after the other.

Chaper 21 verse 40

According to the Big bang all matter was joined together as one united peice. untill it was all separated.

Has not the unbeliver seen that the heavens and the earth were joined together as one united peice untill we separated them...

the verse continues

.. then we created every living thing from water, will they then not believe ?

a fact esablished by modern sciecnce. How can a man living in a desert were there is hardly anywater think that everyliving creature is created from water.

The very nesxt verse

We have placed firm and embedded mountains on the earths crust so it will not shake under them.

We now know that mountains play the function of preventing the earths crust from moving.

The very next verse

We have made the sky a protective and preserved roof yet they still ignore are signs.

We now know are atmoshphere protects us from harmful uv rays, metorites, radiadtion explosions from the sun ect.
How can someone even think that the sky is protecting them from dangers which they dont even know exist ?.

The very next verse

It is He Who created the Night and the Day, and the sun and the moon: all (the celestial bodies) swim along, each in its rounded course.

we now know that even the sun is in a orbit.


Why didnt you watch the Videos i sent you, was it a technical problem?

Answer
Dear Daniel,

I strongly disagree with your concept of proof.

The verses you quote by no means prove that they are from God.

For example, you wrote:

".. then we created every living thing from water, will they then not believe ?

a fact esablished by modern sciecnce. How can a man living in a desert were there is hardly anywater think that everyliving creature is created from water."

Also ancient people knew that every living creature needs water to live. Actually, people living in the desert knew also better the importance of water for life.
Besides, everyone know that babies live into the water in their mother's womb.
So, the idea that every living creature comes  from water is very natural.

Similar considerations can be done for the other quotations of yours.

You must understand that the Quran was written many centuries after the Bible, and many verses of the Quran are based on similar verses fro the Bible.

Anyway, I am not here to debate or to try to convert you to christianity.
I am here only to answer questions.
I have explained my view in my previous answers.
I am not interested in your considerations about the quram.
So, if you have any serious questions, feel fre to write again; please do not write only to explain to me your view about the quram.

Your brother in Christ,

Marco