Is God based on “Facts” or “Trust/Faith”???

He supposedly chose Moses for that purpose, for reasons best known to Him.

Yep, life is a bitch that way. We have these preachers, politicians, bloggers, and other snake oil salesmen trying to sell us different versions of reality, and we have to make sense of them. I try to use my best judgment, based on reason, evidence, intuition, and street smarts, to make the most sense of it I can. Cuz the stakes and outcomes are important.

But if we're just computer simulations in an extraterrestrial kid's science project, that might not get us far. I,like you, have faith (confidence) in science. I'm also aware of the limitations of science and the difference between doing science and doing life. Science is the gold standard of knowledge via rigorous empirical testing of refutable hypotheses. However, it's of little help in deciding who to vote for in the next election. Of course, there is "political science" which uses systematic methodologies to test this or that hypothesis. But most of us know the use of the term "science" for that discipline is somewhat pretentious. And it won't tell us who to vote for. What to do? Some stay home on election day. Others might flip a coin. I have faith that I'll improve my odds by staying as well informed as I can and using my best judgment. Science is great for avoiding Type One statistical errors: false positives, or accepting something as true when it's false. It's not much use in avoiding Type Two errors: false negatives, rejecting something as that can actually be true. Physics is still off balance from the twentieth century impacts of relativity and quantum mechanics on Newton's tidy mechanical model where cause and effect were straightforward. Then there's history, especially ancient history. Historians of that era make judgments based on the best available evidence, but that's often scant for events in out-of-the way places and folks who weren't kings, emperors, or celebrities. By focusing on the latter and ignoring the former, we get a distorted view of the past.

You recently mentioned Napoleon and his DNA, without acknowledging how extraordinary an example he was--emperor of France, invader of European countries, living in the post-Enlightenment when record-keeping was relatively advanced. Unfortunately, such is not the case for much of the ancient world. Historians of that era are stuck with the task of making sense of the limited evidence available. We can insist on "mountains of evidence" before taking a position on whether or not Exodus happened, the Red Sea parted, or Jesus once walked the earth. Or we can draw reasonable conclusions as best we can on the basis of the limited evidence available

 

The "science" of his day, such as it was, had no findings that seemed to contradict those beliefs. What he said was that, if it did, we should look more carefully at the possibility that either our science or our understanding of scripture might be wrong.

 

I hate to break it to you, but most professional historians tend to regard this "history" as wholly or partly legend--in the same category with George Washington and the cherry tree. Many nations have myths about their origin that serve a unifying purpose but are probably not factual. The ancient Romans, for example,thought that their founder, Romulus, was their first king--a remarkable man who was raised with his twin brother, both sons of the god Mars, by a she wolf. Romulus later killed Remus in a bout of sibling rivalry. Eventually, he was taken up to heaven by the gods before death. If you believe that, could I interest you in some prime swamp real estate in McCurtain County, OK. The Aztecs thought they originally lived far to the North of Mexico in a place called Aztlan, and were induced to migrate southward for two centuries, guided by their sun god, until they came to a place where they saw an eagle perched on a cactus with a rattlesnake in its talons. This was taken as a sign from the gods to settle there. Did it happen? Possibly, but it smells like a myth to me. My own people, the Chickasaw, have a tradition of emerging from a cave West of the Mississippi, "the place of the setting sun", and migrated eastward as ordained by our high god, Abaꞌ Binniꞌliꞌ, along with our Choctaw brothers and sisters. Is it true? Some of it might be, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

These myths of national origin serve an important purpose in giving the people concerned a sense of common identity, despite differences. I've already given my opinion on one of the "historical" events you mention: the parting of the Red Sea. In future installments, I hope to take up the others: the Exodus and the Resurrection of Jesus. You say you think the witnesses to these events are reliable. Who were they? What else do we know about them?

 

I don't know about the "raining" of the dead part, whatever that might be. In St. Augustine's day, as in ours, there were/are highly educated people who believe in eternal life and heaven, and even in the resurrection of the body in the Last Days. Science can't disprove those things, although none of them can be proved either. I tend to view them as wishful thinking.
Why almost everyone believes in an afterlife – even atheists
We asked Big Thinkers: “Is there life after death?” Here's what they said.
Beyond Death: The Science of the Afterlife

 

But it also doesn't make them false. It's a judgement call. Or maybe a Pascal's wager.

 

if there was an answer to the question---the question would not be moot.

 

Let me be clear.I have no objection to Desos' faith in the literal words of the Bible, although I and many other Christians don't think that's necessary to be a good Christian. What bothers me is his statement that the Bible is history and "historical accounts leave little room for interpretation. Like when we say, the Jews fled from Egypt, how else could that be interpreted?" Many historical accounts of developments in the ancient world leave a great deal of room for interpretation, and just because the Bible purports to be history and has been copied with commendable accuracy doesn't make it accurate. The Exodus story is a case in point. It was written long before modern traditions of historiography were developed. Most of the great ancient historians--Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, etc., include uncritically events and details which surely never happened--such as speeches which they obviously made up and put in the mouths of various historical figures.

Many scholars are convinced Exodus never happened--at least on anything like the scale reported in the Bible. Ten Reasons Why the Bible’s Story of the Exodus is Not True
https://ehrmanblog.org/is-the-exodus-a-myth/
L. Grabbe, Lester (2017).Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?
C.Meyers (2005). Exodus.
M.B. Moore and B.E. Kelle (2011). Biblical History and Israel's Past.
According to archaeologist Ann Killebrew: "Most scholars today accept that the majority of the conquest narratives in the book of Joshua are devoid of historical reality." Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: an Archaeological Study of Egyptians, p 186. Archaeologist William Dever, who is considered to be one of the moderates on the subject, says: “the Exodus story was produced for theological reasons: to give an origin and history to a people and distinguish them from others by claiming a divine destiny.” Prof. of Jewish Studies Ron Margolin agrees that the story is important as a foundational myth for Judaism, reflecting "a belief in personal and national redemption and an optimistic future for one and all on the basis of commitment to upholding the laws of the Torah and their spirit." Exodus: History and myth, then and now " Rabbi David Wolpe, senior rabbi at Sinai Temple said: “The truth is that virtually every modern archeologist who has investigated the story of the Exodus, with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all.”

There is strong evidence that the bulk of the early Israelite population in the late Bronze Age grew out of the Canaanite population (Archaeologists I. Finkelstein and N.A. Silberman, 2002) The Bible Unearthed). Finkelstein thinks the book was finalized in the In the seventh century when the kings of Judah were mobilizing support against a growing threat of Egyptian power. In late Bronze Age, when Exodus was supposed to have occurred, Canaan was under the oppressive grip of the Egyptians ruled by Thutmose III, who ruled through Canaanite vassal kings. Many Canaanites fled for the hills to join the pastoral nomads who had infiltrated the highlands region where the first Israelite settlements were identified. G. Mendenhall, (Sept., 1962), "The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine" The Biblical Archaeologist, 25:65-87. In a sense, we could say (figuratively) that they were escaping Egyptian bondage, but not in the literal sense stated in Exodus. Israelite Origins: Egyptian domination of Canaan Egypt's grip broke down after 1170 BCE, when natural disasters and resulting population migrations challenged Egyptian resources. Israelite Origins: the Late Bronze Age collapse

If Exodus happened as recorded in the Bible, it would have been a truly miraculous event: 600 thousand men and their families, totaling over two million or more (Exodus 12:37 and Numbers 1), about half the size of Egypt's entire population, suddenly leaving Egypt and wandering around for forty years in a barren wilderness that would ordinarily have taken 11 days to traverse? One explanation is scribal error in misinterpreting the word ‘elep , which could mean groups of some sort instead of "thousands", https://www.gotquestions.org/Israelites-exodus.
html https://www.biblicaltheology.com/Research/RamsundarP07.pdf
But there are numerous other incongruities in the account. If the entire Egyptian army was destroyed, surely some ancient writer or Hittite spy would have noticed, despite efforts at a cover-up by the Egyptians. No archaeological or documentary evidence has been found of a Hebrew presence in Egypt during or prior to the thirteenth century when the event was thought to have occurred. No trace of the migration of a sizeable number of people in the likely migration routes has been found. And the story is riddled with anachronisms (Finkelstein and Silberman, pp.38-40; Ehrman https://ehrmanblog.org/is-the-exodus-a-myth/ )

Yet some scholars, including some of the skeptics mentioned, think that there might be evidence of greatly scaled-down version of a Hebrew migration from Egypt to Canaan. The Biblical account of Jacob's family in the Nile Delta area resonates with memories of the Hyksos' occupation of the same area. The Hyksos, like the Israelites, were Western Semites--many of them Canaanites-- who ruled that part of Egypt until they were driven out by Pharaoh Ahmose in the mid-16th century. They were driven out into the wilderness, and must have gone someplace--some presumably back to Canaan. The third century BCE Egyptian priest/historian Menetho tells of a rebellion and subsequent migration of 80,000 "lepers" and misfits led by a renegade priest named Osareph, who later changed his name to Moses. (By that time, Exodus had been written, so he might have been writing the Egyptian counter-narrative.) Pithom and Ramses, cities Exodus says were built by Israelite slave labor, actually existed in the thirteenth century BCE. The Exodus: Fact or Fiction? And the Israelite tribe of Dan, mentioned as part of the Exodus contingent, seems to have been one of the "Sea Peoples" who invaded Egypt from the Aegean region in the late Bronze Age. https://www.haaretz.coarchaeology/2...by-egypt/0000017f-f2fa-d497-a1ff-f2fac60a0000 It's hard to put all these together into a unified event that happened at the same time, but the Biblical account may be a composite from several time periods.

Archaeologist William Dever thinks there may have been a group of refugees from Egypt, three of the twelve tribes--Manasseh, Ephraim and Benjamin--might indeed have come from Egypt and preserved their experience as the factual core of a tradition eventually adopted by the whole nation of Israel. (Dever, Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? pp. 229.) Is that good enough, or do we need perfect correspondence to the Biblical record? Good enough for me!

Of course, it's always possible that the Exodus account is completely accurate, just as it's possible that the sun revolves around the earth (Sorry, Woolee). It just requires making an elaborate set of improbable assumptions that led scientists to reject the Ptolemaic geocentric theory in favor of Copernicus model. Scientists, following the principle of Occam's razor, prefer the simplest explanation over complicated ones, but maybe reality is stranger than it seems--like being a simulation concocted by some alien kid for his science class. Judgment requires faith: in reason, evidence, probability and Occam's razor.

 

Maybe God isnt the exactly how humans want him to be. But there are forces humans dont fully understand yet in the universe, heck they dont still fully understand everything on this planet, even some of the ocean floors have still yet to be seen. But there is a methematical design and formula to everything and how it fits. So is the question does God exist or does God exist in the forms we say it does and would something as complex be that bothered in the way we think it would or should, in the little speck in the whole ever expanding universe that we are

 

And when we exercise that function and note the staggering improbability that we won the cosmic jackpot, are we allowed to go farther and ask how it is such a thing could have come about spontaneously by blind, random processes?

 

But the basic question is : "Is the heart a more reliable guide to truth than the intellect"? I don't think so.

 

Absolutely yes the heart is a more reliable guide to truth.

"The distance between your head and your heart is only twelve inches, but it's the difference between information and transformation."

 

That's where we differ--majorly. The heart, of course, is incapable of thinking or seeing. As a metaphor for emotion or intuition, it can play a role in rational decision making. (Malcom Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Intuition feels good, but too often relies on superficial patterns, folk wisdom learned on mama's knee, or wishful thinking. Don’t Trust Your Gut Psychologists of human cognition have shown that we're susceptible to all kinds of biases and flaws, operating at a subconscious level--e.g., confirmation bias. Other examples would include patternicity--a perceptual tendency to see patterns even where there are none-- and agenticity--a tendency to find agency in natural phenomena. https://www.cliffsnotes.com/tutors-problems/Psychology/58568129-What-is-patternicity-What-is-agenticity-How-does-our/#:~:text=Patternicity is our tendency to see meaningful patterns,and agents influences how we interpret the world. Psychologist and skeptic Michael Schermer thinks these tendencies account for "why people believe that invisible agents control the world. Don’t Trust Your Gut

On the other hand, intuition can be useful as a last resort, when decisions need to be made on the basis of incomplete information. But there must at least be substantial evidence--enough to convince a reasonable person even though other reasonable persons may not be convinced just because the Bible says so. And where the weight of evidence is against an event like Exodus, I think it would be wrong to insist that it happened. We've come to similar conclusions about Christianity, but I'm not a biblical literalist.

 

Of course we know the heart, as a organ being part of the whole human, does not think or see. But it is falsely felt during emotional excitement. The saying "Cross my heart and hope to die" is an emotional response. So is using the organ in description of another emotional response as "with all my heart." Human emotions cause the body to respond and many times the physical response to human emotion is a tightening of the chest in the location of the heart. Therefore those who feel God is based on trust/faith making the existence fact in their mind emit an emotional output. They will say they "love God with all their heart" and solidify their belief by exclaiming the phrase "Cross my heart and hope to die" as proof.
But this doesn't mean that a God exists because they "Know it in their heart". That it is written in ancient writings, no matter if the document is the Bible, Torah, Greek Mythology found in Hesiod's Theogony, Roman Antiquities, Fasti of Ovid, or any other writing supporting the myth that there is a god or gods ruling the universe, doesn't make it so. To these people they trust and have faith the writings are fact and the "feel it in their heart".