~ Where’s Your Proof?

I don’t know how many of us have thought about it but if we were asked what would be our answer? It isn’t just a Christian issue, the scientist must be able to prove his theory, the police must be able to prove a crime otherwise there was no offence.
For many of us, I feel, would fail the criminal code if Christianity was a crime, and we would cite an ancient book as our justification for our proof. The problem with that is that the Muslims use the same book, as do the Jews. What makes our faith different to them is that we claim Jesus as Lord and Son of God while the Muslims will accept Him as a prophet, and the Jew’s Bible ends with the end of our Old Testament.
To complicate matters even more, it takes an accepting belief that attributes the Bible as God’s Word. Other areas where proof may be required have the benefit of reproducibility.
With some basic science it is reasonably easy to prove a theory, the fact that it works does not explain why it is so. For example if you have a pile of rock beside another pile of rock you have two piles of rock (1+1=2) but if instead you move the first pile on to the second you get instead (1+1=1). The fact that the pile is bigger not being significant to the equation.
So then what is our proof? “God is” and “God’s word” are statements of belief, we take a position of faith to build our position on. This is not to say that God is like some hypothetical concept who we invent, or rationalize. Our experience of God in our life is the proof we have and that is aligned with claims that are included in God’s word, the Bible, or uttered by God’s Word Jesus.
The problem is that our proof is “our proof”, it is an internalized statement. For someone else our proof must be accepted by that person before it becomes true for them, or as I demonstrated with the mathematical equation reject as untrue, folly or whatever. Karl Marx, who has been “quoted” as writing “religion is the opiate of the people”. What he actually said was:
“Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.” ~ Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
We as Christians reject the claims that Marx makes because we believe differently to Karl Marx.
We need a new proof if we are to speak to other peoples experience and questions, to be able to provide a proof that others can accept. Personal integrity and interpersonal relationships provide a good basis for our claims of faith, based on their observations of us. But this is only a partial solution because other people have different observations to us and we need to remember this. We won’t always be asked for proof. We may be asked about things that others believe about us or the church and we may need an answer to these issues if we are to have an influence with them.
I don’t intend for this to be a downer. This question really is about having a influence in the world. I am about equipping others, you the reader, with tools that will help you to have the answer to the questions of the world. This is not of the total solution Jesus, prior to His ascension promised that He would sent another who would provide the answer for the needs of the world. All I am about with this blog is to help with the intellectual background to the issues of the world oppressed, at least ask the questions that may enable you to be prepared when Holy Spirit enables you to be an agent of change for someone.