revelation

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  • types of revelation
    • other people
    • conscience
    • natural world
    • prophecy
    • experience
    • miracle
    • dream
    • scripture
    • morality
    • vision
  • general (indirect) revelation
    • called general/indirect because it is available to everyone, often used to describe the way God is revealed through the natural world: conscience, people, awareness of morality, scripture or reason
  • special (direct) revelation
    • called special/direct because it is revelation directly to an individual or sometimes a group, often used to describe the way God is revealed: through a dream, vision, miracle, experience or prophecy
  • arguments against the idea of revelation
    • natural world-the beauty and complexity of the world is true, but can be explained by science rather than God
    • conscience-an inner feeling about what is wrong and right was not placed there by God but taught to us by parents and others
    • goodness-people do good deeds because they are good people, many nonreligious people do good deeds
    • morality-people societies have to cooperate in order for society to survive
    • scriptures-to the nonreligious scriptures were written by people, they reveal what those people believed, not things about God
    • dreams and visions-neuroscience and psychology can partially explain them, just because they arent yet fully understood doesnt mean God is the reason for them
    • miracles-there is no factual evidence for them, if we can't even know they happened we certainly can't know they are revelations of God
    • prophecies-if they come true, they must have been possible, and reveal more about the mathematical laws of probability than they do of God.

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