Correct me if i get this wrong but it sounds to me you are saying that since more than 40 witnesses report in the bible, their testimony is reliable.
Do you think that all 40 authors or so of the bible agree on their story? It seems to me those authors are not always saying the same thing. Beside they could have believed anything they wanted, that wouldn't necessarily make them correct. The more recent authors clearly had read the more ancient ones. i think accepting as reliable the testimony of those authors the early church accepted as "acceptable" in its canon do show some bias. the testimonies in the bible are not exactly unbiased, don't you think?
Do you think that all 40 authors or so of the bible agree on their story? It seems to me those authors are not always saying the same thing. Beside they could have believed anything they wanted, that wouldn't necessarily make them correct. The more recent authors clearly had read the more ancient ones. i think accepting as reliable the testimony of those authors the early church accepted as "acceptable" in its canon do show some bias. the testimonies in the bible are not exactly unbiased, don't you think?
With regard to the 40 witnesses; it's not just the fact that there are 40 (as opposed to 10 or 5 etc), it's that these 40 aren't (a) in close proximity to each other (i.e. time), that they wrote their own works AND YET they are validating (b) the same thing. Now our English translations may leave a LOT to be desired but inkeeping with the desire to return to the roots of everything, it's important to return to the original languages of these writings. And if you do you'll find they are saying the same things about God.
But yes it's true, any of the writers could've believed *anything* they wanted like you say. But even though that's a possibility, we can't automatically assume that's a likelihood. This is why I said the critical piece of the puzzle is that the God they wrote about *must never change*. Situations can change between the accounts. Different scenarios can develop. But the character of God shown has to be constant. The testimony has to be constant.
Conversely, we can't simultaneously discount these individual accounts as "bias" if things they say ARE the same or if they build upon previous testimony from older accounts because *every* advancement humanity makes (in other worldly truths) is also made the same way: by building upon previously "accepted" truths...isn't it? Take the sciences and technology for example.
so back to the holy spirit.
I think the first step in all this would be to determine what kind of test we can devise to check if the holy spirit is real. What would show it is not, also, to avoid confirmation bias. I mean, we got a hypothesis, let's test it, right ?
What kind of thing would be convincing enough to show that the Holy spirit really fills people ?
I can't think of anything, and i'm hoping people here might bring something up that i could then consider.
Actually i am kind of surprised this is not coming up easier. The belief in the holy spirit is indeed the bedrock of christianity. It seems like if nobody has wondered if it was true before.
I think the first step in all this would be to determine what kind of test we can devise to check if the holy spirit is real. What would show it is not, also, to avoid confirmation bias. I mean, we got a hypothesis, let's test it, right ?
What kind of thing would be convincing enough to show that the Holy spirit really fills people ?
I can't think of anything, and i'm hoping people here might bring something up that i could then consider.
Actually i am kind of surprised this is not coming up easier. The belief in the holy spirit is indeed the bedrock of christianity. It seems like if nobody has wondered if it was true before.
Rather, the first step would be to gain accurate knowledge about God...which brings us back to the issue of the individual writings that we must tackle. The knowledge of God must be confirmed first before we reach the step of receiving the Holy Spirit because how would one know when they've receive the Holy Spirit if they don't really know God?
Now I'm not saying you don't know God, but the accounts detail that the mission of God's witnesses was to spread the *knowledge* of God first. And after the knowledge of God is accepted by a person, the next step was to repent, and THEN that person was to receive the Holy Spirit.
But if what I just detailed is order of operation, can one really receive/experience the Holy Spirit if the knowledge of God (step 1) is incorrect? So again I think it necessitates us tackling the individual writings first, to build the correct foundation.