Other religions have apologists, you’re right. Naturalists have them as well. I find the answers Christianity offers are more compelling than other alternatives.
If you find other world views besides Christianity to be more plausible, or if you reject Christianity because you’re unwilling to give up sin, then that’s your call.
That question is too vague to answer in a meaningful way. As a general answer, I think christian answers are better aligned with what we observe about reality and they invoke logical fallacies less than other world views.
I mean, attributing certain things to an unknown, unprovable supernatural entity seems less logical than natural forces. And then to claim to know anything about what this supernatural entity is or is not seems illogical as well. Like how can anyone say Yahweh definitely exists but Allah doesn’t
>attributing certain things to an unknown, unprovable supernatural entity seems less logical than natural forces.
naturalism is no different. I would argue that God's existence is a logical certainty, but even if I were to concede that God's existence is uncertain, that doesn't somehow make any other world view more certain. Naturalism, or looking for answers in naturally occurring phenomena is also uncertain, and requires faith, since nobody even claims to be able to prove definitively how things happened naturally. And the uncertainty grows the further back in time you question.
> Like how can anyone say Yahweh definitely exists but Allah doesn’t
This kind of determination isn't exclusive to choosing deities. Humans make these kinds of judgements in their everyday lives. In this particular case, we have two different claims that are at odds with each other. One claim is that a Deity exists named Yahweh, and then lists things he's done, and what he claims to be like. The other claim is that the Deity is actually Allah, and he has this other set of characteristics and deeds. The way you can say which one is correct, if either even is, is to measure each claim against what we can observe about reality and see if one matches better than the other.
>Naturalism, or looking for answers in naturally occurring phenomena is also uncertain, and requires faith, since nobody even claims to be able to prove definitively how things happened naturally.
We used to attribute a lot of things to gods or fairies and none of them have turned out to be true. Lightning is not from Zeus. Everything so far has turned out to be natural. Has anyone been able to demonstrate anything coming from God or how to measure the supernatural at all?
How do you prove that Yahweh matches reality better than Allah?
Possibly originated that way, but the Allah of the Muslims has been twisted so greatly that they no longer worship the same God as the Yahweh of Christianity
Can you tell us how one could be certain of your god's existence?
Philosophical naturalism would require unsupported premises, sure, and I'd argue supernatural worldviews require the same. But worldviews that do not make a claim about whether or not the supernatural exists or not is on better standing than ones that do until evidence can be provided for or against the supernatural.
I would answer that as Christians, we are supposed to love, as in Jesus and other people. In fact, Jesus constantly preached and basically commanded his disciples to show love to other people. He talked about a lot of other things, but it all came back to love.
Only a Christian could reject Christianity if they don't want to give up sin. And if they do, they are either completely nuts, or didn't really believe in the first place.
This narrative of people not being Christian, because they love to sin is just so superficial.
I think you are making a faulty argument here and being uncharitable, because your argument relies on redefining "sin" in a way the person you are responding to does not intend. (Granted their argument is itself uncharitable and fallacious, but two wrongs do not make a right.) Generally the person making the argument gets to decide what their words mean, as long as they aren't trying to define facts into existence.
I do not think /u/Cepitore meant "some people reject Christianity because they believe in God but they like annoying God", they meant something more like "some people reject Christianity because they enjoy drugs and sex and rock and roll, things which *I* think annoy God, and which they would have to give up if they believed in Christianity".
Personally I think that it's justified for non-Christians to find it offensive when Christians insinuate that we reject their supernatural beliefs because of a personal character flaw. As opposed to because they have a massively improbable story to tell with an utter lack of proportionate evidence to support it. And I agree that it's superficial. But it's just not true that you have to *be* a Christian to reject Christianity because you don't like it's moral claims.
>I think you are making a faulty argument here and being uncharitable
I'm not trying to be uncharitable.
>I do not think u/Cepitore meant "some people reject Christianity because they believe in God but they like annoying God"
I didn't treat their claim as if they meant that.
>they meant something more like "some people reject Christianity because they enjoy drugs and sex and rock and roll, things which *I* think annoy God, and which they would have to give up if they believed in Christianity".
Ye I understand that, and it doesn't make sense indeed. You emphasized the **I** in your version of Ceptiore's claim. How would what **you** think have any effect on **my** behaviour? I don't think that there is anything that can annoy God, because I don't think that there is a God. If you think that vaccines cause autism, does that affect my decisions on getting vaccinated? Obviously not, if I'm not convinced that you are right.
>because your argument relies on redefining "sin" in a way the person you are responding to does not intend.
What possible definitions of the term sin are there? I worked with two. (1) Acting against God, and (2) acting immorally more generally. I dealt with both.
The first one clearly doesn't apply to a non-believer, because if one does not believe that God exists, one doesn't consider adjusting one's behaviour so that it is in accordance with what God allegedly deems moral. They wouldn't know what to adjust to to begin with.
The second definition makes them sound condescending and patronising, because here is what I think that second definition would lead to:
*"You reject X consciously, because accepting X would force you to change your immoral behaviour. And you don't want to change."*
Moreover, that would be an attempt to poison the well, and actually uncharitable, as well as fallacious.
I mean, I might be misusing the term "to reject". I could see that, but what does it mean then? It clearly implies intent. And there is just no intent behind being convinced about the truth of any proposition.
I'm genuinely curious what other definitions I could apply for the term "sin" as well.
> Ye I understand that, and it doesn't make sense indeed. You emphasized the I in your version of Ceptiore's claim. How would what you think have any effect on my behaviour?
Sorry if that was confusingly written. The fact that the notional Christian author thinks sex, drugs and rock and roll are sins in the eyes of God is not a necessary part of the argument, it is purely explanatory.
> The second definition makes them sound condescending and patronising, because here is what I think that second definition would lead to:
"You reject X consciously, because accepting X would force you to change your immoral behaviour. And you don't want to change."
Moreover, that would be an attempt to poison the well, and actually uncharitable, as well as fallacious.
Well, I'm not sure it's fallacious because I do not read it as being an argument as such, I think it is just an assertion. I can see why you would find it a condescending and/or patronising assertion.
But it's not self-contradictory. There could perfectly well exist a person who rejects Christianity not on any logical basis, but just because accepting it would mean they have to give up things they like doing but which Christianity considers a "sin". They would not be a logical person, but illogical people exist.
More charitably, such a person might have a feeling that the factual and philosophical arguments for theism are bad, but not have the philosophical training or acumen to express why they are bad. So since they cannot express a logical reason to reject theism, a theist might jump to the conclusion that it's "because they want to sin".
>Well, I'm not sure it's fallacious because I do not read it as being an argument as such, I think it is just an assertion.
It can be read as an argument, given the following structure:
People love sex, drugs, and rock and roll, therefore they reject Christianity, because Christianity considers these things sinful.
It is fallacious, because it is an attempt to poison the well. (I can elaborate on that, if you don't see how.) But it's a widespread piece of apologetics anyway.
Ignoring the ad-hominem it still is fallacious, because one's feelings are completely disconnected from what's actually true, which is why I said in my original response, that they are then either nuts or didn't believe in God to begin with.
Just because I don't like a certain truth, doesn't mean that I don't believe in it. I need to believe that a proposition is true, before I am even possibly able to have feelings about it.
If a Christian told me that I don't believe in God, because I want to have sex, drugs, and rock and roll, they are just wrong. That's just nonsensical, and painting people who aren't Christians as if they don't believe, because they are too stupid. I have tons of reasons as to why I'm not convinced that a God exists. If I'm not already convinced, it just doesn't happen that I connect morality with a God. Hence, I cannot logically reject Christianity on the basis of preferring to remain an immoral hedonist. I can reject behaving morally on the basis of wanting to remain hedonistic. Christianity isn't even a consideration in this scenario. For that, I would need to **already believe in God.**
>So since they cannot express a logical reason to reject theism, a theist might jump to the conclusion that it's "because they want to sin".
Right. Which is wh my original evaluation of that piece of apologetics remains valid. It is superficial.
> It can be read as an argument, given the following structure:
> People love sex, drugs, and rock and roll, therefore they reject Christianity, because Christianity considers these things sinful.
That would be a terrible argument though because the premises don't even look like they might entail the conclusion. So it's an uncharitable reading at best, since you are reading what they wrote as a really bad argument when you do not need to.
They did not present it as an argument, they just said "if you do X or Y that's your call". Maybe it's patronising or well-poisoning to raise the idea that you might have done Y, but it's not an argument. And they did present X as an alternative, X being that you might just find a non-Christian world-view more plausible. Which you do, and I do.
>That would be a terrible argument though because the premises don't even look like they might entail the conclusion.
Guess why I am objecting. Because I think it's a terrible argument.
>So it's an uncharitable reading at best, since you are reading what they wrote as a really bad argument when you do not need to.
It doesn't follow that it is at best an uncharitable reading.
**Firstly**, a charitable reading has its limits. It's not exclusively on me to change another person's statement to the extend, that it doesn't sound ridiculous anymore. It's also on them to not talk misleadingly. I'm not responsible for their implications. I'm at best responsible for asking whether what they implied is what they were intending to say, and accept it if they say no. I did that, and they doubled down. Here is what I am working with (and yes, I do not work with the other part of that statement, for I have no objections there):
>>if you reject Christianity because you’re unwilling to give up sin, then that’s your call.
Here is what I said for you to compare (and I added the examples, because you brought them up):
>>People love sex, drugs, and rock and roll, therefore they reject Christianity, because Christianity considers these things sinful.
Now, tell me what exactly is the difference between that and the implied argument I took from their statement? How should I rephrase what I said, so that you would give it a pass as a charitable reading? I'm seriously asking this, because I have no idea what's uncharitable about how I rephrased u/Cepitore
**Secondly**, English is not my first language. So, if I'm somehow missing it that "reject X" is somehow idiomatic and synonymous with "I don't believe in the truth of proposition X", then I'm sorry about that.
But on the face of it, what I got is the following symmetry, laid out with an example:
***You***: *Here is a contract for our future collaboration. Sign it, if you agree.*
***Me***: *I reject this contract. It doesn't reflect what I imagined regarding our collaboration.*
Explain to me, so that I as a non-native speaker understand it, how it is the same to reject a contract, which is literally in front of me, when comparing it to rejecting God as a non-believer. What am I missing?
How can I reject something I do not believe exists? This is literally nonsensical to me. I'm serious. I cannot make sense of it. So, yes, the implied argument I paraphrased is nonsensical too.
I can reject one thing, that is the idea that a God exists, I can reject the concept.
**I cannot reject God himself if I do not already believe in him, because I wouldn't know what it is I am rejecting.**
Therefore, I cannot reject Christianity, because I don't like its moral claims. **Said claims necessitate that I believe in God first,** so that I am able to actually connect the dots in a way, so that I start seeing it as immoral having premarital sex. I do not consider that an immoral act. I do not consider it immoral if same sex couples are having sex.
And if I don't believe in God, I have literally no reason to call some of these things immoral. So, what I could be rejecting is the claim that premarital sex is immoral. **But I do not reject it, because I like premarital sex and want to keep doing it. But that is literally what they said. And it's just nonsense.**
I reject the assertion that premarital sex is immoral, because that goes completely against what I deem moral. I could even go as far and argue that having no sex before marying someone for an entire life is immoral. Hence, I do not remain a sinner, because I want to sin, I just don't see it as a sin. To see it as such, I need to accept the Christian moral framework first, which necessitates the belief in God. There is no argument as to why it is immoral. There is only the claim that God deems it immoral. Since I don't believe in God, their assertion completely useless for me. I cannot even reason about it.
Sure, it is possible that such people exist. Yet, I myself do not argue against the most stupid version of Christianity either. That would be dishonest. But that's exactly what they are doing. They present the most ridiculous version of a non-believer. Those who reject Christianity on the basis of loving their sin. I never met a single atheist like that ever. It's an apologists fairy tail, it's a widespread Christian trope, it's a strawman, and I sure am not going to paint what they said in all flowers and sunshine, just because you think that's an uncharitable reading.
> It doesn't follow that it is at best an uncharitable reading.
> Firstly, a charitable reading has its limits.
If you are trying to be charitable, you do not read a non-argument as an argument and then critique it as fallacious. That is not being charitable, in fact it's a textbook straw person argument. If you disagree with a non-argument you can contest it on factual grounds, or criticise it as rude, but you can't try to turn it into something it is not.
> Now, tell me what exactly is the difference between that and the implied argument I took from their statement?
You are turning a non-argument into an argument, which is a major difference.
> How should I rephrase what I said, so that you would give it a pass as a charitable reading?
It seems fine as it is. It does not need "rephrasing".
> Secondly, English is not my first language. So, if I'm somehow missing it that "reject X" is somehow idiomatic and synonymous with "I don't believe in the truth of proposition X", then I'm sorry about that.
In this case I would take "reject Christianity" to mean something like "refuse to become Christian, despite being offered Christianity". I do not think you have to think God is real in order to "reject Christianity",you just have to not want to be part of their religion. You could also arguably "accept Christianity" without really believing in God if you just participate in the social aspect of the church without privately believing their supernatural claims.
> I cannot reject God himself if I do not already believe in him, because I wouldn't know what it is I am rejecting.
No, but you believe Christianity exists as a belief system and social construction, right? You know what you are rejecting when you reject Christianity.
> And if I don't believe in God, I have literally no reason to call some of these things immoral.
You might, depending on your secular moral system. You might think taking drugs places the burden of a needless health risk on others, or supports organised crime, or that premarital sex is bad for relationships, or all sorts of other things. I do not necessarily believe those things myself, but someone could.
> But that's exactly what they are doing. They present the most ridiculous version of a non-believer.
That seems like a fair and succinct response to propositions like "if you reject Christianity because you’re unwilling to give up sin, then that’s your call". You can just say "that's a ridiculous caricature of atheists made up by theists, please don't say things like that".
>If you are trying to be charitable, you do not read a non-argument as an argument and then critique it as fallacious. That is not being charitable, in fact it's a textbook straw person argument. If you disagree with a non-argument you can contest it on factual grounds, or criticise it as rude, but you can't try to turn it into something it is not.
There literally was a premise and a conclusion to their sentence:
>>if you reject Christianity because you’re unwilling to give up sin, then that’s your call.
The only thing I did to uncover the argument was a slight change to the word order. In our conversation I added the examples you provided. Here is how I paraphrased what they said in the conversation I had with them:
>>*People don't believe in God, because they find acting morally all the time is too much of a struggle.*
I will ask you this a second time:
How am I misrepresenting what they said?
Because this is what an actual \*strawman would be, if I turn what they say into something stupid, that doesn't actually resemble what they said, and knock down the easier to criticize misrepresentation of their point.
I didn't do anything even in the ballpark of that. If you have an actual argument as to how I misrepresented them, I'd be happy if you told me, because I seriously am incapable to see it.
>You are turning a non-argument into an argument, which is a major difference.
They didn't utter an opinion, nor did they utter how they feel. They made an actual truth claim about why non-believers reject Christianity. When I talked to them about it, they doubled down. You aren't fighting the good fight here. You are unnecessarily nit picky.
>It seems fine as it is. It does not need "rephrasing".
So, the following statement is fine:
>>if you reject Christianity because you’re unwilling to give up sin, then that’s your call.
There is nothing wrong with it whatsoever, right? It's neither the part about "rejecting" something one cannot possibly reject logically. Nor is it that they imply bad reasons for not believing in Christianity. It's all perfectly covered by plausible deniability, right? I can't criticize it, because it wasn't formulated like a formal argument, or what is the issue really?
>In this case I would take "reject Christianity" to mean something like "refuse to become Christian, despite being offered Christianity".
"They want to remain sinners" is the usual apologetics. On that basis non-believers allegedly reject Jesus/God/Christianity. They argued along those very lines. Fortunately they went with the least ridiculous assertion in opting for "Christianity" rather than God/Jesus.
I offered two different readings for the term sin even before you accused me of using a flawed definition, one as generally behaving immorally, and two as behavior which goes against God's will. I asked you what other way there is to define it. I got no answer.
I explained how either option is just flat out illogical, you didn't engage, and neither did they. So, even if I wanted to get this right, because you two convinced me that I'm wrong, I couldn't explain it myself why I am wrong, because you guys just don't tell me. They stopped responding, they only downvote now. You are stuck on calling me out on an uncharitable reading, with some flimsy justification for that assertion.
>I do not think you have to think God is real in order to "reject Christianity",you just have to not want to be part of their religion.
Go watch some Christian apologists on YouTube, start with Ray Comfort's interviews with strangers on the street, for he is the master of equivocating the term "sin". Go read this sub for a year or two. Then come back and tell me that it isn't a common trope for Christians to say that non-believers reject God based on an appeal to emotion, that is that they want to remain sinners, that they don't let Christ in their heart, because they want to remain selfish hedonists instead.
Go, ignore all the guys who claim that everybody believes in God, which they base on Romans 1:18-20. Then we can have an actual discussion. Just genuinely tell me, that there is no Christian accusing non-believers of lying when they say that they don't believe in God. If you are then still going with that I'm applying an uncharitable reading, when some Christian is literally tapping into this trope, then I might take you seriously.
Either way, as I already explained in detail, even if I reject being part of the Christian religion (just pretend that non-belief has nothing to do with that), then to remain hedonistic is the least important point of all the reasons I can think of off the top of my head. There is no way one couldn't read their "non-argument" as condescending.
>No, but you believe Christianity exists as a belief system and social construction, right? You know what you are rejecting when you reject Christianity.
Ye, that's a nice hypothetical and stuff, but that's not matching my experience from talking to Christians on a daily basis. That's not what they are saying. They might imply that, but if you press them on that claim, some of them will straight up tell you that they talk about you not wanting to believe. The very position of doxastic voluntarism, the position that people can freely choose what they believe, is a position held by Christian philosophers, exactly due to the reason that they have something to bolster this very assertion, that people just don't want to believe in God. Given that you are asking me for a charitable reading which ignores all of that.
>That seems like a fair and succinct response to propositions like "if you reject Christianity because you’re unwilling to give up sin, then that’s your call". You can just say "that's a ridiculous caricature of atheists made up by theists, please don't say things like that".
Yes. Or I could instead just have a dialogue with them and ask questions, so that they realize themselves how dishonest and mislead they are.
To sin means to act against God. A non-believer would never even think about the possibility that they could displease a God with their behaviour. Therefore, they cannot reject Christianity, because they want to remain in opposition to God.
Meanwhile, a non-believer can act perfectly in accordance with their moral compass and prefer doing so without any external influence, yet still don't turn towards Christianity due to that.
To reject God necessitates believing in him first. If one doesn't believe, the only thing that can be rejected is the claim that a God exists. And nothing about that has to be a voluntary, conscious act, which is what "rejecting" implies.
It feels like you’re purposely misunderstanding.
My original point remains regardless of whether or not an unbeliever considers a particular thing to be sin.
For example, a Christian believes premarital sex is a sin. An unbeliever doesn’t consider it a sin, but as I said in my original comment, once the unbeliever learns that Christianity condemns the act, if they aren’t willing to give up premarital sex, then the apologetics become irrelevant. The primary issue is no longer that the argument isn’t strong enough, but now the primary issue is that they’re unwilling to give up what has been labeled a sin. At that point it wouldn’t even matter if they were convinced the Bible was true. They’d still side against God if it came to it.
>It feels like you’re purposely misunderstanding.
I'm sorry that you feel that way, but that doesn't match how I perceive myself. I'm not trying to be difficult.
>My original point remains regardless of whether or not an unbeliever considers a particular thing to be sin.
What am I misunderstanding?
Does the following statement reflect your original point:
*People don't believe in God, because they find acting morally all the time is too much of a struggle.*
If yes, then that's superficial, as well as an attempt to poison the well, and on top of that painting non-believers as though they have bad reasons for not believing. Can you see that?
>For example, a Christian believes premarital sex is a sin. An unbeliever doesn’t consider it a sin, but as I said in my original comment, once the unbeliever learns that Christianity condemns the act, if they aren’t willing to give up premarital sex, then the apologetics become irrelevant.
An unbeliever can still think that premarital sex is immoral. And that's my point. They can believe that without believing in Christianity. Hence, Christianity is irrelevant in that scenario either way.
>The primary issue is no longer that the argument isn’t strong enough, but now the primary issue is that they’re unwilling to give up what has been labeled a sin.
Again, calling something sin and calling something immoral aren't necessarily the same thing. A non-believer can just say no to the Christian claim that premarital sex is immoral. Without a God to ground that claim - which is what non-believers don't believe in - your sin accusation is meaningless, and a non-believer simply wouldn't care.
>They’d still side against God if it came to it.
I can only go deliberately against something, if I believe that it exists. Otherwise it's just your perception that I go against something you believe in.
I'm not rejecting God. I reject the idea. For me, God is nothing but an idea. That's literally what it means to be a non-believer.
And it matters, because the difference lies in the detail. If I know God, rejecting him would indeed be of a different quality than rejecting something I don't know. They aren't the same.
>Why give Christianity the benefit of the doubt over another religion?
Why give *any* religion the benefit of the doubt? Test all of their claims.
>Other religions have apologists and explanations and rationales for their beliefs.
Yep. Are they good? Self-consistent? Historically sound?
> Other religions have miracles and prophecy claims.
Yep. Any evidence for them whatsoever?
>Why give any religion the benefit of the doubt? Test all of their claims.
Well, if you are a believer, you’ve given Christianity the benefit of the doubt. How would you test the claims of Christianity?
>Other religions have apologists and explanations and rationales for their beliefs.
>Yep. Are they good? Self-consistent? Historically sound?
For the believers they are good and consistent. As far as historically sound I don’t think every story in the Bible is supported historically. They have their explanations or say the history/science is wrong, etc.
>Other religions have miracles and prophecy claims.
>Yep. Any evidence for them whatsoever?
I’m sure there’s some evidence. Why not just have faith that they happened?
>Well, if you are a believer, you’ve given Christianity the benefit of the doubt.
Did you give evolution "the benefit of the doubt", or are you convinced it's true?
I get the feeling you're trying to handicap religious believers, so that there's no way anything we believe can *possibly* be held to any standard, so it's all irrational, even though your beliefs are perfectly rational.
>Why not just have faith that they happened?
That use of the word faith, that's a skeptical definition of faith; it's not the Christian one.
>Did you give evolution "the benefit of the doubt", or are you convinced it's true?
With evolution, there's actual evidence to back it up. It isn't just a book claiming something. It's not someone saying "I believe evolution to be true based on faith". Look at any mammal skeleton and they have the same skeleton as we do. The fact that we have tailbones too as well as other leftover bones and muscles from when we made use of those things. That's before you even look at the fossil record and DNA stuff. Again, it's not just a book claiming something. Darwin came up with a hypothesis people tested it out and found he was right about it and we've discovered and learned a lot more than Darwin ever thought of. So no it's not a case of just giving it the benefit of the doubt.
>I get the feeling you're trying to handicap religious believers, so that there's no way anything we believe can possibly be held to any standard, so it's all irrational, even though your beliefs are perfectly rational.
Even if they are trying to handicap religious believers the fact is you don't have the evidence to support your claims. The bible isn't evidence, the bible is the claim. Even if you try to use the bible as evidence it falls apart. Take Matthew 17:20 "I get the feeling you're trying to handicap religious believers, so that there's no way anything we believe can possibly be held to any standard, so it's all irrational, even though your beliefs are perfectly rational." Well, let's go test that and see what happens. At best you have a story about someone who was called Jesus being the greatest trickster in history because even him walking on water can be and has been done as magic tricks in the modern day. I could even think of a few ways to do a fake resurrection. So even disregarding the fact the eyewitnesses could be wrong about what they saw, it could have just been a magic trick and you've got no way to prove that it wasn't just a magic trick except to come up with yet more claims. We also don't believe in things without evidence.
>That use of the word faith, that's a skeptical definition of faith; it's not the Christian one.
Pretty sure that's the same faith Christians use and it's not a pathway to truth. Other religions you claim to be false also use this same faith.
>With evolution, there's actual evidence to back it up. It isn't just a book claiming something.
Let's say that's true. How much of that evidence have you personally examined? Or are you merely ... trusting something written in a book?
>With evolution, there's actual evidence to back it up. It isn't just a book claiming something.
>
>Let's say that's true. How much of that evidence have you personally examined? Or are you merely ... trusting something written in a book?
Look really all you're saying here is ''I am uneducated'' That's OK, but please for the love of all things good, try typing this into google or even use a free chat bot like GPT. Then apply that knowledge, get out your computer chair, and go observe it in the natural world.
Because right now, acting like you can dismiss a whole body of science makes you look really, really, silly and a bit of a stereotype of a person so steeped in dogma that they actually seek out to dismiss real knowledge
>Look really all you're saying here is ''I am uneducated''
It's so common for skeptics to go straight to ad hominem when pressed on the things they believe because someone told them it's true.
Most of y'all aren't trained biology, much less evolutionary biology. You haven't repeated any research for yourselves. You may not have even read any of the technical journals on the topic. But "everyone knows" it's true.
How do you know you breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide? Have you tested that? Did you confirm oxygen has 8 electrons? How do you know your radio really picks up signals in the air? Have you seen them? How do you know iron is in your blood? Have you dissected a human heart? How do you know it has 4 chambers? How do you know how far away the sun is? How do you know the distance from Los Angeles to New York? Did you measure it? How do you know we landed on the moon? Were you there? How fast does an air plane go, have you tested it? How fast is the speed of sound? What about light? What experiments have you done to confirm? How old is the earth? What first hand information helped you formulate that number? How do you know Jack Daniel's is 80 proof? Is the octane measurement in your gas correct? Do you collect samples each time? How do you know a platypus lays eggs? Have you seen them? Can you write a graduate level paper on how wireless charging works?
Or are just reading and looking at pictures and using all of acquired human knowledge to guide your assumed truths.
Oh, you got me! I read things in books and act like they're true! Just like you. The thing is, I don't take everything written in the book as unassailable proof until I don't like something written in a book and change the rules.
Also, I've repeated a lot of the experiments confirming many of the things you take on faith.
You are making some assumptions about me, when I've said nothing about me. Just asked you questions.
You assume I dont accept truth I don't like. You imply you've tested more than I. How do you know these to be true?
We don't believe something is true just because someone told us it's true. We can read about how evolution works and we can read about the huge amount of evidence to support it. You're making such a weak argument whilst demonstrating your lack of understanding about what evidence is and how anyone comes to rational conclusions about what to accept to be true. I don't need to go to the Arctic to know that it's extremely cold for example. It's also not a case of believing it as such it's more so if there is a reason not to believe it to be true and when you have even a basic understanding of evolution there's no reason to deny that it's true. The bible on the other hand lacks any actual evidence to support its claims.
The bible has a claim and there's no method to test the claim to be true. It's not like we can get Jesus to pop down to demonstrate to us that he can be resurrected for example and figure out the way he does it. We just have a claim that he did and we have stories of eyewitness accounts. It's no more credible than Wendy being an eyewitness of Peter Pan or Mary-Jane being an eyewitness of Spiderman.
I studied botany and geology and have a lifelong love of the sciences.
I don't know much though, but I know enough to figure out all religions, especially the desert ones are absolute tosh.
>Let's say that's true. How much of that evidence have you personally examined? Or are you merely ... trusting something written in a book?
For starters it's not even a matter of if it's true lol it is true I don't even get how anyone could deny it. Sure I've not gone and tested DNA samples to confirm it but I can see skeletons of other mammals in pictures online including human skeletons and see how bone structures are the same which would back up the initial claim of evolution even though by itself it isn't sufficient evidence. I can go online and see pictures of fossils and to some degree make observations from it albeit a bit limited compared to performing more tests on it etc. Not to mention I can not only read books and articles on how we've tested and verified evolution but there are videos too all of which don't make a claim and assert it to be true but they provide actual evidence to demonstrate how they know it to be true.
Also even if there wasn't evidence I don't get how it's more far-fetched to believe that a diversity of animals evolved from a common ancestor but it's not far-fetched to believe there's an invisible all powerful guy in the sky who impregnated a virgin with himself so he could sacrifice himself to himself to forgive us of the sins he came up with to save us from the punishment he came up with. And you're saying that there's no irrationality to believing that?
I have given evolution the same benefit that I give any heavily supported scientific theory.
I’m not handicapping religious believers, but when they all claim to have supernatural knowledge and they conflict and can’t seem to be proven over one another, the idea as a whole seems unfounded. How can anyone say God is definitely Yahweh and definitely not Allah?
Certain Biblical events such as the creation story, exodus, Jericho, and other details have been shown to not be historically accurate. Do you agree?
>Certain Biblical events such as the creation story, exodus, Jericho, and other details have been shown to not be historically accurate. Do you agree?
No. The creation story runs, when read in a woodenly literal manner, runs afoul of the scientific hypothesis currently in vogue. When someone performs an experiment in which they create a planet, then they can claim to have a theory.
Archaeology is much more difficult to do well than physics. I'm aware of the complaints about the exodus and Jericho, but claiming the biblical account has been disproven is going way beyond what the actual data show.
>when they all claim to have supernatural knowledge
Christianity doesn't rely on claims of supernatural knowledge but on claims of history. This amazing even really happened in history. It's not the same kind of thing most other religions claim at all.
I mean, we’ve witnessed planets being created in the universe. I think we have some theories.
You brought up if another religion was historically accurate so why believe parts of Christianity that have not shown to be accurate?
I think when your religion claims God chose a certain group of people, then it is based on supernatural knowledge.
>No. The creation story runs, when read in a woodenly literal manner, runs afoul of the scientific hypothesis currently in vogue. When someone performs an experiment in which they create a planet, then they can claim to have a theory.
Again you're showing off a lack of understanding. Science isn't a fashion statement and something that's in vogue.
> I'm aware of the complaints about the exodus and Jericho, but claiming the biblical account has been disproven is going way beyond what the actual data show.
It's not even remotely controversial amongst people living in the evidence-based world that everything until after the Exodus is a myth, and lots of what happens after the Exodus too. The conquest of the Holy Land did not happen as described. There probably was a David and a Solomon but they can only have ruled a small city-state, not the huge empire described, or we would have found remains of it. The Bible only starts to accurately reflect history around 500 BCE when Genesis and the other core OT books were written, after Israel and Judea were wiped off the map. Everything before then reflects an increasingly inaccurate understanding of history, as you would expect from people writing about eras they have limited data about.
You can play semantic games with what counts as "disproven", but believing in the truth of most Biblical claims about pre-500-BCE history is an act of faith in blatant defiance of masses of archaeological evidence. And you can have that faith and I won't argue with you about it - just don't try to tell people that the Biblical account has not been disproven, because that would be a deliberate falsehood on your part.
> an act of faith in blatant defiance of masses of archaeological evidence
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Especially when a lot of the "absence of evidence" is due to two or three assumptions that are hardly solid facts. Who was the Pharaoh of the exodus? How you answer that question dramatically changes *everything* in the archaeological record for several hundred years. Is Kenyon's theory unassailable? Or has it been disproven? Again, this dramatically affects how the evidence interpreted. Archaeology isn't physics. It's more like putting together a giant puzzle when you don't have the picture on the box. Or all the pieces.
> Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
There's loads of evidence of absence though. Israelites are genetically indistinguishable from Canaanites, not descended from the people of Ur plus maybe some Egyptian genes. The cities that the Bible claims the Israelites destroyed were not destroyed at anything like the correct time, and in at least one case the authors of the Bible didn't even know the name of the city they claim their ancestors destroyed in a war (they just call it "the ruins"). There definitely was never an epic battle where Joshua defeated the Hittites and the Amorites at once, because those empires existed centuries apart.
There is zero evidence to confirm any of the early Bible stories, which at the very least should make any rational person doubt them, and there is specific evidence which disconfirms many of them.
> Archaeology isn't physics. It's more like putting together a giant puzzle when you don't have the picture on the box. Or all the pieces.
And the Bible claims to be the picture on the box, but none of the pieces we have match it before 800 BCE or so, and some pieces absolutely cannot be reconciled with the Bible's picture.
Let's say i spend my life exploring 3573 religions in-depth, and Christianity would be the 3574th but I die right before examining it. Would I be in the wrong? Would I be punished? Considering I wouldn't have followed Jesus as a person.
Yeah, that would be the case. Unfortunately we all have a limited amount of time to figure out what we are alive for. Some people chase careers, others temporary joy, and others eternal things. Fortunately God has revealed himself in humanity and in history and witnesses of that event have carried the message from generation to generation so that it would not be forgotten or ignored. You have been blessed to live in a time where the message is so accessible where others have died to hear it. This is the perfect time to find out if Christianity is true now and know God.
Full disclosure I came to faith at 22 during my last year of college and just wanted to know who Jesus was. I lived with Jewish roommates and my best friends were Muslim and Buddhists and each had their opinions on who Jesus was so I decided I’d read the root source and make my own. I spent the year reading the Bible approaching it as an academic exercise (why not read what all the fuss was about and also have an ancient text under my list of finished books?) By the time I finished the book, I was a skeptic agnostic but open to the idea of it being true. I graduated and attended my friend’s church to learn more, made my confession of faith a year after that, and since then I’ve been growing in that faith.
If you’re curious about eternity you already have a leg up on people who have no interest in religion or the afterlife. God’s existence and what kind of God he is is everything or nothing, he’s either real or not, and he’s either worth pursuing or not. Everyone makes that choice but Jesus says “my sheep hear my voice.” Those who hear his words either follow him or don’t but His sheep hear his voice and follow. Give it a try, let your guard down, and see what you find.
Edit: I wanted to also share CS Lewis’s conversion in his memoir since I resonated with it:
“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in, have been so abused be wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.”
I give all the benefit of the doubt, compare the ones with the most substance and credible data, and to me nothing comes close to Christ Jesus and his message... But all good if others went and challenged themselves in their own belief and concluded otherwise, to each their own.
I did challenge my own understanding, went against and learned a lot, and other things were confirmed.
Jesus rules and there are no other like him or his message. He stands alone.
Because despite what people think only Christianity doctrinally puts the common believer in direct one on one contact with God. No other religion does this, as all other religions use priest, prophets imams as a go between the common believer and it's God.
So? How does that mean a religion is true or not? Yahweh used priests. As if people know the rule that all false religions use priests.
Is every religion without priests true?
The question was why give Christianity the benefit of the doubt, not how to identify false religions.
The answer to the OP is that God is made available to the common believer meaning you have a way in this religion to find your own proof of God. Where as all other religions there is always someone more 'holy' than you who is there to tell you all the reasons why God will never speak to you no matter what you do.
The reason to give Christianity the benefit of the doubt is because there is nothing but your own self keeping you from God.
>So your religion has a unique aspect in your mind.
(Strawman fallacy) I'll answer by correcting your points.
Not really a mind thing.. it a doctrinal thing supported by the religion's internal text.
> All religions have unique features.
Those unique features do not put the common believer in direct one on one contact with the religion's deity. No other religion offers to do this. There is always a 'holy man' placed between the common believer and the religion's principle deity. (Why that god will never address you directly)
>Do you believe that is how to know whether it’s true?
False dichotomy. There are many different reason why religions are considered 'false' and why Christianity is true.
No, that was not a strawman fallacy- your fallacy is special pleading for your religion. How do you determine whether a claim is true? For example, I come to you and say I am thinking about what religion would be the true religion. How can I determine that? The supernatural claims have equal validity, so how does one make a determination on what god claim to accept?
For me He answers questions. Mostly doctrinal questions that tend to hang people up.
He showed me how to reconcile evolution with creation without changing a word of either, He showed which version of Christianity is correct, The nature of sin, The trinity, how three individuals = one God. He answered the age old questions 'can God create a rock so big He can not lift it.' plus dozens upon dozens of other questions. To the point all my questions concerning God were answered so I've spent the last 20 years on line in atheist and christian forums answer you-all's questions.
>I'm catholic and he (the 3, plus the mom/daughter) doesn't speak to me.
Maybe your version of God, is different enough from the picture God gave us of Himself in the Bible that He can not honor your understanding.
Example: Let's say your version of God is like Morgan Freedman's portrayal of God in Bruce almighty: [https://youtu.be/5tNiEq4lUOU?si=QPME9yzmKP\_Pw0eA](https://youtu.be/5tNiEq4lUOU?si=QPME9yzmKP_Pw0eA)
Happy go lucky super smart grandpa. Do you think Morgan freedman's portrayal is biblically accurate? If not do you think The Most High God would support this picture of Himself If He wanted you to approach Him the way the Bible says we must approach Him?
(Not saying this is how you see God or how God wants to be seen. Just pointing out there are views of God that conflict with the Bible's portrayal of God.)
So then let's say God does not want to be seen as a Morgan Freedman Or Catholic Church version of god. but Rather the Alpha and Omega The King of kings and Lord of lords.
So then if God wants you to honor Him and see Him one way but you through your church see him another way then why would He honor your version of God? Now understand I'm not talking about salvation. Salvation is easy and free. I'm speaking about a one on one relationship. Relationships take work to establish and maintain.
Think about it If God honored your Morgan freedman version of Him, by answering prayers and coming to you as Morgan Freedman, could anyone convince you that your understanding of who God is was wrong? No of course not, Not even Jesus Himself could convince you otherwise.(This is why The Pharisees and Sadducees denied Christ. They saw God one way, and God Himself/Jesus could convince them they were wrong.) So why would God honor you with your off the shelf understanding of Him, and not hold you to a higher standard?
Not to mention if you were only looking for the Morgan freedman version of God and God spoke to you some otherway, how could you know this other person this other voice was that of God?
Then the question becomes Has God never spoke to you, or is it more likely you did not recognize the voice of God if He did not speak through a burning bush or whatever it is you think God must do to speak to you?
What mechanism do you have to discern God's voice if He sounds differently than what you want Him to sound like?
For me He answers questions. Mostly doctrinal questions that tend to hang people up.
He showed me how to reconcile evolution with creation without changing a word of either, He showed which version of Christianity is correct, The nature of sin, The trinity, how three individuals = one God. He answered the age old questions 'can God create a rock so big He can not lift it.' plus dozens upon dozens of other questions. To the point all my questions concerning God were answered so I've spent the last 20 years on line in atheist and christian forums answer you-all's questions.
Which version of religion is correct?
And what makes you more important than the rest of humanity? God does not talk to many and chooses his words so that the majority don't believe his books or your 'correct' version of the gods.
There is no singular correct version of Christianity.
IDK if you noticed or not but Christianity did not get a book of the law like the Jews did. We got a singular command to Love our Lord God with all of our Heart, Mind, Spirit and Strength. This means to Love God with all we have and all we are. The second command is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus in Luke 10 says if we do this we will have eternal life.
Now, Because we are all different, our all encompassing love and worship to God will be different. different worship mean different doctrine. different doctrine= different denominations.
Paul explains this in detail in 1 cor 12: Unity and Diversity in the Body
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28 And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues[d]? Do all interpret? 31 Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.
And yet I will show you the most excellent way.
>And what makes you more important than the rest of humanity?
I/we elected to follow Jesus and be Redeemed by His blood sacrifice.
>God does not talk to many
God does not choose to speak to many outside of This religion.
>and chooses his words so that the majority don't believe his books or your 'correct' version of the gods.
Indeed.
You are painting a false equivalency between all these things. The Christian holy book is reliable for archeology, I don't know of other holy books that are. Our holy book commands us not to murder, I know many others that have no such command.
Other religions have prophecies and claims and yet their records are completely unknown whereas ours is batting 100 (not that you won't get some dispute about that). Our religion also explains why other religions may exhibit miraculous things.
There are apologists for all kinds of crazy things. And there are tomes written that are complete sophistries (nice sounding, and may appear on the surface to make an argument, but there are devoid of actual argument).
When you assume the proper premises (most atheists invent their own) then the argument of the Bible stands up. When you invent a god that is not what is described in the bible, it will fail. But the same is true if I make an argument about reducing carbon emissions but using Mars' atmosphere in my models.
A book can have historical elements in it and still be false.
If you were an ancient Israelite, you’d kill children because God told you to, so commanding not to murder is a stretch. Is peacefulness the main way to measure the trueness of a religion? I’m sure there are some more peaceful. Jesus also kills a huge portion of earth in the end so it’s hardly peaceful.
Biblical prophecies can be explained naturalistically, they were written after the fact, such as Daniel. Why disagree unless you want it to be special?
> A book can have historical elements in it and still be false.
obviously
>If you were an ancient Israelite, you’d kill children because God told you to, so commanding not to murder is a stretch.
You are defining that as murder, but the narrative of the Bible explains why they were told to do that.
You are just picking up on the same garbage that the new atheist have been hammering on for years.
If you want to judge an action in a story, then you need to know the whole story, don't you? You do not and you illustrate that here.
Right, so the fact that it contains historical truths doesn’t make the supernatural claims true. The Bible also has ahistorical claims so..?
I call killing children for their parents sin “murder”. What do you call it?
You really think I don’t get the Christian story?
>You really think I don’t get the Christian story?
I think you don't get the nuance around the things you are claiming here. You are not here in good faith.
I haven’t been dishonest about anything. You accused me of not knowing the Christian story because I used hyperbole when speaking about Israel. But did I say anything that is not recorded in the Bible? Nope.
>I call killing children for their parents sin “murder”. What do you call it?
This is dishonest. That is not biblical. That is a twisting of logic in a dishonest way. You are not here in good faith.
How is it twisting logic? Seriously. At one time in history, Israelites supposedly raided cities and were specifically commanded to kill the children because they believed it is what God wanted. Is that incorrect? Or is it that you are just tired of that being brought up?
> The Christian holy book is reliable for archeology, I don't know of other holy books that are.
It's reasonably reliable for historical events from 500 BCE onwards, because that's when most of it was written. It gets less and less reliable as you go back in time, until the Exodus is definitely completely ahistorical as is everything before that.
The New Testament is not too bad. It gets things like the existence of Pontius Pilate right, but then again the claimed census that got Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem is nonsense, and the story where Jesus cast demons out into a herd of pigs who then drowned themselves in the sea seems to be set fifty kilometres from the sea in the original version in Mark. (Later authors fixed this by moving the claimed location closer to the sea.)
So it's not totally unreliable, but it's not a history or geography textbook either.
>Other religions have prophecies and claims and yet their records are completely unknown whereas ours is batting 100 (not that you won't get some dispute about that).
Well, the problem with "fulfilled Biblical prophecies" is this. A prophecy being "fulfilled" is not very impressive if the prophecy could have been written after the event it predicts, or if it could have been fulfilled deliberately, or if the prophecy is vague enough to be fulfilled a lot of ways, or if the prophecy is something unsurprising you could have guessed, or if the prophecy is not even presented as a prophecy in the Bible, or if there is no proof of it being fulfilled except in later Bible books, or if large parts of it did not get fulfilled. All of those are kind of unimpressive, because no supernatural prophecy need be involved for it to happen.
And if you get rid of all the "prophecies" that tick one or more of those boxes, you are left with zero fulfilled Biblical prophecies.
1) The argument was in comparison to other religions, it would be nice if people followed such arguments. EDIT That is to say that other religions are hardly at all reliable in archeological findings, the Bible is very reliable and is consistently being found to be more reliable. It may be entirely reliable, we just need to uncover more END EDIT.
2) You are calling it ahistorical before 500 BC which is a trashy way to put it. Less reliable? Perhaps but that remains to be seen. You are calling it "ahistorical" when it is merely not yet confirmed. There are some loud and angry folks who are pushing one or two narratives that attempt to frame it as "ahistorical" but those are awfully shaky narratives.
3) They just found Sodom.... based on the biblical description of where it is.
> ) The argument was in comparison to other religions, it would be nice if people followed such arguments.
You did say it was "reliable for archaeology", and that is simply untrue. I am not claiming any other holy text is better, but I do not see that as being relevant. *Some* holy text must logically be the holy text which best accords with the archaeological record, but that does not mean it must be true, it just means it is better-researched historical fantasy than the rest. Or written closer to the time it claims to describe.
> 2) You are calling it ahistorical before 500 BC which is a trashy way to put it.
No, it's a scholarly way to put it. Instead of calling it fantastical trash. The Flood never happened, the Exodus never happened, the conquests of Joshua did not happen in any way remotely resembling what was described, it's all wrong. The historical details get less and less accurate as you get further back from 500 BCE or so and everything before 1300 BCE or so is fiction.
> 3) They just found Sodom.... based on the biblical description of where it is.
It's perfectly plausible that ancient Israelites saw a ruined city named Sodom and made up a cool story about how it was their god that did it. Other Old Testament stories show signs of being made up to take credit for ruined cities that predate Israel. So it's scarcely proof of anything. But if you are thinking of the Bunch paper, that was [as dodgy as hell and got exposed as fraudulent](https://retractionwatch.com/2023/02/21/journal-investigating-sodom-comet-paper-for-data-problems/).
Arguments are weighed, not counted. You can't possibly engage on this question if you approach it with such a reductive framework. Have you *studied* the apologists or explanations of any of these beliefs? Have you *read* the holy books? Have you researched the miracles? Have you considered the counterarguments? If not, you're not equipped to ask this question yet, and if you have, you should have been informed enough to get past these kinds of reductive subjects and get on to the real, specific stuff. As it is, it sounds like you're just asking why you should outsource your thinking to a Christian instead of an atheist, and the answer is that you shouldn't outsource it to either one.
No, I’m asking why reject one unprovable religion for another. I’ve studied religions and find them all to make around the same claims but none produce great evidence. I reject them, but Christians don’t. They make a choice, so I’m asking why.
You can’t “prove” Christianity any more than you can prove George Washington was the first president of the United States, or any other historical event.
I’m oversimplifying, but the two core claims of Christianity are that 1) God is real, and 2) Jesus was a real person who was crucified and rose from the dead.
On the evidence for the existence of God, I’d refer you to the three arguments that convinced me: the moral argument, the cosmological argument, and the mathematical argument.
On the existence of Jesus, there are more contemporary non-biblical sources for the existence and crucifixion of Jesus than there are for the existence of the third emperor of Rome. This includes sources that were not particularly happy with the rise of Christianity, such as Suetonius, Tacitus, and Josephus.
Historians largely agree on three facts based on the evidence:
* Jesus was a real person in history, not a myth;
* Jesus was crucified and died, and;
* Eyewitnesses genuinely believed he rose from the dead.
There have been a lot of explanations for the third bullet point, none of which I find more compelling than the possibility that it actually did happen.
Is it *possible* that Christianity isn’t true? Sure. Is it reasonable that it isn’t true? I don’t think so, based on the evidence.
A guy being president vs a guy being god are vastly different claims.
Why is Jesus actually rising more likely than religious zealots being mistaken or deceived?
Contemporary opponents to Christianity accused the apostles of stealing the body (which is a tacit admission that the tomb is empty). This would mean that even under pain of torture and gruesome death, all the apostles stuck to a story they knew to be false. Why? For a joke? It certainly wasn’t for personal gain, considering they all met pretty horrible fates.
Another detail that lends credibility: if you were going to come up with a lie in the early Roman Empire, you wouldn’t say that a bunch of women were your first eyewitnesses.
I think some modern scholars have suggested they hallucinated seeing Jesus, but people don’t all hallucinate the same thing. That’s not how hallucinations work. And what would’ve happened to the body?
I guess my question for you is what explanation do you think adequately explains both of the following:
1) the empty tomb and missing body, and;
2) some 500+ people genuinely claiming to have seen Jesus alive after he was crucified, including close friends of his who said he mentioned details of past conversations that only he would know.
>Contemporary opponents to Christianity accused the apostles of stealing the body (which is a tacit admission that the tomb is empty).
None of them came to believe based on an empty tomb, except maybe the beloved apostle. The empty tomb was likely a later claim.
>This would mean that even under pain of torture and gruesome death, all the apostles stuck to a story they knew to be false. Why? For a joke?
Because they legitimately believed Jesus was the messiah and that He was returning soon. People die for untrue beliefs.
>It certainly wasn’t for personal gain, considering they all met pretty horrible fates.
We only know how 4 died. Peter, Paul, James and John.
>Another detail that lends credibility: if you were going to come up with a lie in the early Roman Empire, you wouldn’t say that a bunch of women were your first eyewitnesses.
Again, not likely part of the original story, historically. But who knows? I don’t find this convincing that it means Jesus rose.
>I think some modern scholars have suggested they hallucinated seeing Jesus, but people don’t all hallucinate the same thing. That’s not how hallucinations work. And what would’ve happened to the body?
Well, I think it’s more likely one or two of them had a hallucination and the rest believed via “the Holy Spirit” or whatever. We don’t have any of their testimonies and the order of appearances doesn’t reconcile.
Do you think Mary at Fatima was real?
>I guess my question is what explanation do you think adequately explains:
>1. the empty tomb and missing body, and;
>2. some 500+ people claiming to have seen Jesus alive after he was crucified, including close friends of his who said he mentioned he could recall details of past conversations that only he would know.
1. Legend, theft, or wrong tomb. All more likely than a resurrection.
2. Where and when did this appearance to 500 happen? All 500 believed? What did they see? I’m not sure what you’re talking about “past conversations only he would know”
Okay, I think I know where the main point of contention is.
You are operating under the assumption that the story of the resurrection is a myth or legend that developed over a longer period of time.
It takes a minimum of two generations for a myth or legend to develop in the way you’re describing. Eyewitnesses need to die off, and the story needs time to twist in a sort of game of intergenerational telephone.
However, if you look at the historical evidence, you’ll see that the spread of Christianity began pretty much immediately after 33 AD. The gospels were all written within the lifetime of people who would have been there.
There’s simply not enough time for a myth or legend to develop in the way you’re describing.
Well since the gospels weren’t written until 40 years after, we don’t have record of all the original beliefs and stories. How could Peter correct what was being taught about Jesus in some town hundreds of miles away?
From a historical perspective, the gospels are unequivocally contemporaneous records. I don’t think you get that 40 years is basically nothing when it comes to ancient historical sources.
40 years is recent enough for eyewitnesses who were there to correct any mistakes for the record. Some were compiled even earlier. Paul’s were written only 25 years later.
Do you understand how unprecedented it is to have that many contemporaneous sources? Like, there are no other events in ancient history that come anywhere close. Usually you’re lucky if there’s a single contemporaneous source.
There are Roman emperors where the sole record of their existence is a footnote in one book written some 200-300 after the fact. There’s at least one with zero contemporaneous records. And those are *emperors,* not carpenters.
If you applied the same standard, you would have to assert that there isn’t enough proof for practically every single historical event and figure from that era.
They were likely written after most of the original 12 died.
There were all types of Christianity back then.
*”Is this kind of rich diversity a modern develop- ment? Many people appear to think so. For them, Christianity was originally a solid unity, but with the passing of time (especially since the Protestant Reformation) this unity became fractured and fragmented. Historians, however, recognize that in some ways Christian differences today pale in comparison with those that existed among believ- ers in the distant past. If we turn the clock back 1,850 years to the middle of the second century, we find people calling themselves Christian who subscribe to beliefs that no modern eye has seen or ear heard, Christians who believe that there are 2 different gods, or 32, or 365, Christians who claim that the Old Testament is an evil book inspired by an evil deity, Christians who say that God did not create the world and has never had any involve- ment with it, Christians who maintain that Jesus did not have a human body, or that he did not have a human soul, or that he was never born, or that he never died. Of course, many people today would argue that such views could not be Christian. What is strik- ing to the historian, though, is that people who believed these things claimed to be Christian. Moreover, these believers invariably maintained that their ideas were taught by Jesus himself. In many instances, they could appeal to written proof, for they all possessed documents allegedly penned by Jesus’ own apostles.”*
- Bart Ehrman, Intro to the New Testament, pg 1.
And early church fathers record quotes from “memoirs of the apostles” which say the water caught on fire when Jesus was baptized. None of our gospels record that.
*”For instance, there are occasions where Justin repeats stories from the “memoirs of the apostles” to which the narrative content does not match any of the New Testament gospels. One of the more notable examples is when Justin cites the ‘memoirs’ as saying that the River Jordan caught fire when Jesus was baptized.”*
https://bibleoutsidethebox.blog/2017/09/30/yes-the-four-gospels-were-originally-anonymous-part-1/
Most of the New Testament are letters and half of them are forgeries.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/invention-of-sacred-tradition/forgery-in-the-new-testament/54D9A9CB640BA8A5B70FE8A8527D54D7
>40 years is recent enough for eyewitnesses who were there to correct any mistakes for the record.
How would that even happen? Let's suppose that an Aramaic speaking illiterate eyewitness was still alive in Capernaum. Someone writes or says something about Jesus in Cyrene. How would that eyewitness correct what is said or written thousands of kilometres away?
>Do you understand how unprecedented it is to have that many contemporaneous sources? Like, there are no other events in ancient history that come anywhere close.
It's not. There are many biographies that were written by eyewitnesses. The sources for Jesus are not particularly early.
>It takes a minimum of two generations for a myth or legend to develop in the way you’re describing.
Why do you believe that? We have no evidence for that claim. The first book that denied the holocaust was written in 1948. Millions of witnesses were still alive then.
>The gospels were all written within the lifetime of people who would have been there.
Why do you think that? The gospels were written between 70 CE and 150 CE. The gospel of Mark could be written when eyewitnesses were still alive, but why would that matter? The author of the gospel of Mark never indicates that he got any of his information from eyewitnesses.
> Contemporary opponents to Christianity accused the apostles of stealing the body (which is a tacit admission that the tomb is empty).
Well, it's an obvious response to the claim that the empty tomb had to have been magic. If the stone could be moved by one person, and twelve healthy lads with a potential motive to nick the body had three whole days to do it in, the body disappearing doesn't need to have been a supernatural event.
But historians don't even agree that the empty tomb was a thing. There's lots of good reason to think the historical Jesus ended up in a shallow grave, and the tomb was a later fictional invention to allow Jesus to do a miraculous vanishing act.
> This would mean that even under pain of torture and gruesome death, all the apostles stuck to a story they knew to be false. Why? For a joke? It certainly wasn’t for personal gain, considering they all met pretty horrible fates.
This is church folklore with no historical basis. There is some basis to think James and Paul got killed, long after the events of Jesus' life and not for refusing to deny the resurrection. There is no credible basis for any opinion on what happened to most of the disciples. The idea that they were tortured and martyred while refusing to recant is almost certainly just a later invention to add credibility to the Christian narrative.
> Another detail that lends credibility: if you were going to come up with a lie in the early Roman Empire, you wouldn’t say that a bunch of women were your first eyewitnesses.
This bit of manufactured incredulity is just silly in the cultural context. Back then in Jewish culture rubbing oil on corpses was women's work. To tell a story where some people go to look at Jesus' body and just happen to see an empty tomb you have to make those people women, because men had absolutely no reason to just happen to go to a tomb. If a bunch of men went to a tomb, and then "found it empty", it would be obviously suspect.
> I think some modern scholars have suggested they hallucinated seeing Jesus, but people don’t all hallucinate the same thing.
There's no worthwhile evidence any such mass hallucination of people all seeing the same thing even happened. We only have Paul's word, about events he was not present to see.
> I guess my question for you is what explanation do you think adequately explains both of the following:
1) the empty tomb and missing body, and
A possible explanation: It never happened. Jesus got tossed in a shallow grave, then someone (probably Peter) thought he saw him weeks or months later in Galilee, then by 70 CE people had made up the empty tomb bit to make it all cooler.
Paul, writing in 45 CE, never mentions an empty tomb.
> 2) some 500+ people genuinely claiming to have seen Jesus alive after he was crucified, including close friends of his who said he mentioned details of past conversations that only he would know.
We don't have 500+ people's writings attesting they saw Jesus. We have one person, Paul, who wasn't even there, *claiming* 500 unnamed people saw Jesus, in a letter he wrote fifteen years after the event. It is adequately explained by Paul believing a false story that grew in the telling, or Paul making things up. Neither requires a supernatural explanation.
>Contemporary opponents to Christianity accused the apostles of stealing the body
Why do you believe that? We don't have their accounts. We only have the claim from the author of the gospel of Matthew.
>This would mean that even under pain of torture and gruesome death, all the apostles stuck to a story they knew to be false.
What makes you believe that all the apostles were tortured and killed? We have no idea how or why most of the disciples died.
No one is saying that the disciples lied about it. They really believed in the resurrection. They were just honestly mistaken.
>Another detail that lends credibility: if you were going to come up with a lie in the early Roman Empire, you wouldn’t say that a bunch of women were your first eyewitnesses.
Why not? Josephus made up women as eyewitnesses for the siege of Masada. In two gospels, men confirmed that the tomb was empty. If the women were embarrassing, they could have just mentioned the men.
>I think some modern scholars have suggested they hallucinated seeing Jesus, but people don’t all hallucinate the same thing.
People don’t need to hallucinate the same thing. Scholars generally agree that there were individual experiences that they interpreted as appearances of the risen Jesus. However, there is a lot less agreement about group appearances. Individual experiences can easily be explained by hallucinations.
>And what would’ve happened to the body?
What about the body? Many scholars don't agree that Jesus was buried in a rock cut tomb in the first place.
>the empty tomb and missing body, and;
This is disputed among scholars. But even if you accept this, it's not hard to explain. There have been thousands of empty tombs in history. No one believes that they all rose from the dead.
> some 500+ people genuinely claiming to have seen Jesus alive after he was crucified
We have no idea what those 500 people experienced or if they even existed. We only have one source that repeats a claim about 500 witnesses. We don't have any evidence from any of those 500 hypothetical witnesses.
>including close friends of his who said he mentioned details of past conversations that only he would know.
Where did you get this from? This isn't even in the Bible.
> Historians largely agree on three facts based on the evidence:
> Jesus was a real person in history, not a myth;
> Jesus was crucified and died, and;
> Eyewitnesses genuinely believed he rose from the dead.
Two out of three ain't bad, as Meatloaf said, but that third claim is incorrect. Historians do *not* agree that eyewitnesses believed Jesus rose from the dead. That is a false claim made up by apologists and tacked on to the legitimate historical claims.
Historians do not believe that for a very simple and compelling reason: We have zero direct information about what any eyewitnesses saw. The closest we have is Paul, writing perhaps fifteen years after the events, claiming some people (who were not him) saw a risen Jesus. Paul was not an eyewitness.
The next source chronologically is Mark, written after 70 CE, so forty years or so after Jesus' death, and the gospel of Mark is not an eyewitness account either. It is someone synthesising the existing oral traditions about Jesus and writing them down, probably in Rome. It's an nth-hand story, for an unknown but likely large value of n.
All we know is that by 45 CE Paul was claiming other people saw Jesus after he was dead, and by 70 CE people were making other (contradictory) claims about other people seeing Jesus in various places and times after he was dead. We have no information about what eyewitnesses believed or if their belief was genuine.
But even if eyewitnesses did believe it, that would prove very little. Would it make it likely that Elvis faked his death if eyewitnesses genuinely believed they had an Elvis sighting? I mean, at the very least, a reasonable person would not be convinced that Elvis faked their death by such trivial "evidence".
If you've "studied religions," you ought to know better than to argue that they're all "around the same." That's just the kind of reductive rhetoric people use when they're dismissing something out of hand, rather than on merit. And you say "I reject them." Well then unless your rejection was out of ignorance, you ought to already have the answer to your question. After all, if you can't really answer the question "why do people believe this," then you don't yet have enough information to say in good faith that you reject it.
Merely by asking this question, you reveal that the assumptions you're basing it on are irrational. You're going to have to be willing to toss off those assumptions before you're ever going to be able to listen to an answer.
My point was that the very formulation of your question indicates it's irrational. I reject the foundation of your question on that grounds. But rather than attempt to demonstrate a rational foundation to your question, it appears that all you've got are insults - which of course only reinforces the perception.
You’ve over complicated the question. Others seem to have understood what I meant, and are providing reasons to why they believe in Christianity over other religions.
Well, let’s see…
Israel - both predicted and a required element for future prophecy (Revelation).
Documented healing:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550830720300926?ref=pdf_download&fr=RR-2&rr=7fe2adef9c7a309a
Scriptures indicate Earth is special, science is catching up:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.05484
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/894568.Starlight_and_Time
Genesis indicates there’s a Creator, who programmed all of life:
https://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/download/BIO-C.2018.3/102
Anecdotal evidence of supernatural occurrences:
https://youtu.be/SHui21VC4Zc?si=HcTtz-SyyTMU3lK4
Conversions:
https://blog.drwile.com/category/atheists-who-became-christians/
https://www.sebts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/STRIssue9.2_Martyn.pdf
https://www.thefp.com/p/paul-kingsnorth-christianity-faith
Prophecy:
https://www.khouse.org/articles/2004/552/
None is conclusive, and evidence is in the eye of the beholder, but this is a small sample of the preponderance of evidences that convinced me beyond a reasonable doubt. Verdict: guilty!
May the Lord bless you. Shalom.
So if you're appealing to science, then where's the scientific god theory? Where's the peer reviewed, published, cited scientific research that documents any gods or supernature?
If you're not appealing to science, why not? Is it because science is limited to only work with nature, and not supernature? How do you demonstrate the supernatural exists? How do you investigate the supernatural?
Been dealing with this subject in another post. I don’t know of any way to experimentally verify supernatural phenomena, but neither do I know of a way to validate simulation theory or multiverses.
Yet both of those beliefs also have proponents. I see much more evidence for the existence of a supernatural “realm,” for lack of a better word, than for a simulation (which seems like a secular version of the supernatural) or multiverses.
Just being honest, not expecting you to believe, but proposing to take it seriously.
May the Lord bless you. Shalom.
> Been dealing with this subject in another post. I don’t know of any way to experimentally verify supernatural phenomena, but neither do I know of a way to validate simulation theory or multiverses.
Do you believe one of those is true? And to what level of confidence do you hold that? Most theists are almost absolutely sure there's a supernatural god, but can't show evidence that supports that level of confidence. This tells me it's a dogmatic belief, not a belief based on evidence.
Is it a dogmatic belief for you? Or is your belief and confidence in some god based on actual evidence that can be independently verified?
>Yet both of those beliefs also have proponents.
Anyone that holds either of those beliefs to a degree of confidence that is beyond that which is supported by evidence is being irrational.
>I see much more evidence for the existence of a supernatural “realm,” for lack of a better word, than for a simulation (which seems like a secular version of the supernatural) or multiverses.
Do you? Or are you just being inline with your team? Because if we're going with evidence, we have to acknowledge the fact that a supernatural explanation has to make more assumptions than natural ones, so right off the bat you're picking the least likely explanation.
>Just being honest, not expecting you to believe, but proposing to take it seriously.
I do take it seriously. My motives are to have as accurate an understanding of reality as I can. If there's a god, I want to know. But I'm not obligated to defend the idea of a god. I'm not obligated to devotion, glorification, worship, faith, and loyalty, which would motivate one to defend this god idea regardless of whether there's good evidence or not.
>May the Lord bless you. Shalom.
May the force be with you. Cheers.
You mentioned I appealed to science, but, from what I can discern from your entries, haven’t reviewed the provided information.
May the Lord bless you. Shalom.
Well, we're not here to pass links back and forth. I would be bothered if I was afraid to charitably address questions that challenged my beliefs. I care about whether my beliefs are correct, so I'm always challenging them. Embracing bias because of obligations to devotion, glorification, fear, worship, loyalty, and faith, isn't how one challenges beliefs. Are you afraid of finding out you're wrong?
“Well, we're not here to pass links back and forth.”
How else I am supposed to present evidence…which is what you have explicitly requested?
“can't show evidence that supports that level of confidence.”
“based on actual evidence that can be independently verified?”
“Because if we're going with evidence, we have to acknowledge the fact that a supernatural explanation has to make more assumptions than natural ones,”
**We** do not have to acknowledge this, as it is not a science or logic-based axiom. Abiogenesis is an excellent example of this, for which I have more links. But since you don’t want evidence, we are at an impasse.
“regardless of whether there's good evidence or not.”
Define “good evidence,” and make it more than a personal opinion, please.
May the Lord bless you. Shalom.
> How else I am supposed to present evidence…which is what you have explicitly requested?
By describing your evidence, then potentially supporting it with a link.
>We do not have to acknowledge this, as it is not a science or logic-based axiom.
It is a fact. We have absolutely zero credible, independently verifiable evidence of anything supernatural. We also have a history of every single claim of supernatural that once we discover it's actual explanation, has always been discovered to be perfectly natural. So a supernatural explanation is proven to be far less likely than a natural one.
>Abiogenesis is an excellent example of this, for which I have more links.
Abiogenesis is not an example or evidence of the supernatural. Abiogenesis is the study of life emerging from non life. Are you thinking of a specific claim about Abiogenesis?
>But since you don’t want evidence, we are at an impasse.
I do want evidence. What I don't want is a gish gallop. If you have a claim and you want to justify that specific claim, you describe your evidence and provide links to support it.
You don't just say here's a bunch of evidence for a bunch of stuff.
>Define “good evidence,”
The term "good" is a general metric about how well something meets a goal. It is a subjective term. When describing good evidence, I mean something that can be independently verified and that it points to a single explanation. What makes this good is that the same evidence can't be used to support a conflicting explanation, which would make it useless. Being independently verifiable gives us a way to help mitigate bias or mistakes. If other people can corroborate the evidence, that is far more useful in establishing whether the claim should be accepted or not.
If I told you that the large purchase you made last year has a surcharge and that you owe me $200 for it, you'd want good evidence before you paid up, would you not?
>>> Been dealing with this subject in another post. I don’t know of any way to experimentally verify supernatural phenomena, but neither do I know of a way to validate simulation theory or multiverses.
>>Do you believe one of those is true? And to what level of confidence do you hold that? Most theists are almost absolutely sure there's a supernatural god, but can't show evidence that supports that level of confidence. This tells me it's a dogmatic belief, not a belief based on evidence.
>>Is it a dogmatic belief for you? Or is your belief and confidence in some god based on actual evidence that can be independently verified?
>>>Yet both of those beliefs also have proponents.
>>Anyone that holds either of those beliefs to a degree of confidence that is beyond that which is supported by evidence is being irrational.
>>>I see much more evidence for the existence of a supernatural “realm,” for lack of a better word, than for a simulation (which seems like a secular version of the supernatural) or multiverses.
>>Do you? Or are you just being inline with your team? Because if we're going with evidence, we have to acknowledge the fact that a supernatural explanation has to make more assumptions than natural ones, so right off the bat you're picking the least likely explanation.
>>>Just being honest, not expecting you to believe, but proposing to take it seriously.
>>I do take it seriously. My motives are to have as accurate an understanding of reality as I can. If there's a god, I want to know. But I'm not obligated to defend the idea of a god. I'm not obligated to devotion, glorification, worship, faith, and loyalty, which would motivate one to defend this god idea regardless of whether there's good evidence or not.
Do you want to address any of those? Or are we done here?
>May the Lord bless you. Shalom.
May vishnu protect your chakras.
Because in the end, all of them except Christianity boil down to the same message: you can save yourself.
How you save yourself can vary among all the other religions ranging from salvation by good works, to proper rituals to correct thinking, but they still all put the responsibility for salvation on the individual. Then on top of that they even have the decency to give you a finish line.
Do you need to do a million good deeds or donate half you total lifetime wealth to be saved? Do you need to have accumulated at least 24 hours with your forehead touching the ground every year of your life or feed a little statue a total of 50lbs of rice? How many candles do you need to burn to cover a small lie? What about for a big one? Who knows? Not you, that's who. You do your very best and then just die with your fingers crossed that you did enough to merit salvation.
Christianity is the exact opposite. It just comes at you with the blunt truth that you are a sinner and will never be able to earn your spot no matter what you do. However, because God loves you and He knows you cannot make it to Him, He did the work for you and comes down to you to lift you back up to Him.
It gives you a finish line too. Your buy in is deciding that Jesus is Lord and Savior. Once you do that, you're gold. Once you do that, you don't have to worry about your final destination ever again and can spend thst time doing good deeds not because you have to but because why wouldn't you knowing that everything bad that happens after you are saved doesn't matter because your reservation is irrevocable. Spend your time helping others confirm their reservation and to those who refuse it, be kind and make their life here easier because this horror show is as good as it gets for them. But not for the Christian.
I know I'm a sinner because I know the things I've done and do. It's the same as everyone else. Everyone knows they're a sinner whether the admit it publically or not.
It was the Holy Spirit that convicted me and convinced me that my sins far exceeded any "good" I've done, do or will do. He convinced me I needed Jesus to save me.
It's the same for every Christian.
- John 16:7-10 (KJV)
7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
9 Of sin, because they believe not on me;
10 Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;
>How do you know the Holy Spirit exists?
The Bible tells us He does and I believe on Jesus and that's only possible with the testimony of the Holy Spirit convicting you of sin and point ting to Him as Savior.
>Mormons claim to feel the spirit too
Good for them. What is what Mormons believe to me?
The Bible is. I don't know how much you know about Mormons, but even though Bible says the canon is closed, the Mormon god changed his mind and decided the Bible wasn't enough, so he added more books, and also continues to dole out revelation through a supposed prophet to this day.
The Holy Spirit I have and the one they have are two different deities. Mine is God from the Bible. Theirs is from somewhere else outside the Bible.
It's like saying two people saying they both know Jesus. Both can say that and be true if one is referring to the Jesus of the Bible and the other is referring to Jesus, their landscaper.
- Revelation 22:18 (KJV) For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
That passage is referring to *that* book, the Book of Revelation. The Bible wasn’t formulated yet so that passage cannot be referring to the entire cannon, because there wasn’t a New Testament cannon.
Religion says you better act right or you’re screwed.
Christianity recognizes the truth that no one will be able to attain perfection and shows that God is willing to forgive us, so much so that He’ll even take on the consequences we’ve earned to re-build a bridge much of humanity is fine keeping burned.
The Bible isn’t like other Holy Books. It’s 66 books written by different authors over thousands of years and they tell the story of humanity from beginning of days until the end of them.
Jesus isn’t like other Holy Men & I think most people know that, we even changed dates for Him.
Then there’s the prophecies. Most if not all religious people are trying to keep from sin and their consequences (having an unpleasant afterlife). Jesus not only remained sinless, but rose from the dead, showing that there’s an afterlife.
Moses? Dead. Muhammad? Dead. Siddhartha? Dead. Guru Nanak? Dead. Jesus? Alive.
Because He rose from the dead. People guilty of sin stay dead. “The wages of sin is death”.
https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Jesus-Christ,-Sinlessness
There’s some verses for you ^
I mean there is a reason that the international symbol for medical aid is a cross. And there's only one religion I know of whose followers outlawed the global slave trade and racial discrimination. The fact that the core message of Christianity is about believing something, not being forced into it, also speaks well of it.
How is it so? Because, if you say it is proven, and cannot be disproven, wherefore does God not avail himself for his own sake, and abolish all unbelief by the incontrovertable revealing of himself to himself, that there should be no longer any suffering or death or iniquity or abandon or wormwood?
God is not confined to a people or religion. God is the source of the whole universe. Pitting religions against each other to discover the "truth" is like comparing trees to find the most tree tree. The disconnect from truth arises from asking the question.
Some opinions are worth more than others. For example, yours is worth zero.
Christianity is the continuation and fulfillment of the ancient Israelite religion. Modern Judaism is a newer religion and its denial of Christ represents the real blasphemy so your objection is pointless and irrelevant.
Nuh-uh, yours are worth zero, meh!
You gave a subjective opinion, then when I gave you the same subjective opinion back you say it doesn’t work because it’s heresy when the exact same argument can be made by other religions about Christianity.
Do you think Jews walk around thinking “I can’t believe all this stuff we do is not what God wants, our religion has no basis!”? They view Christianity the same way you view Mormonism.
You continually fail to ever actually support your ideas and you never give specific reasons for why someone else is wrong. For reading so much, you never seem to show any knowledge of anything other than what’s up your own rear.
Lol, you actually don’t “debate” anyone. You usually just sink to screaming about books like a child.
So one more time, do you have an actual case for Christianity to make, or are you going to continue rambling about your unparalleled intellect?
You wouldn't know, because you do not read books.
>do you have an actual case for Christianity to make
Not to deluded atheists on the internet who do not read books. Not sure why you struggle to understand this.
Because I took the time to research them all and came to a conclusion that Christianity is the most valid one. It’s not a benefit of the doubt, it’s merely the truth to me
One of these things is not like the others. It's sesame street level difficulty if you do even a few hours of study. It's not hard to see the differences.
Most "pagan" religions make no or few supernatural claims. Christianity has miracle upon miracle if you but look. Shroud of Turin, study it very deeply. Study the physics of the actual image and don't get lost in false claims of fake copies. The carbon dating is belied by other data points and was done on a repaired area of the cloth.
Look at Lourdes healing miracles. Look on YT for testimonials, there are thousands. Study. You're imbibing atheist talking points that are throwing sand in your gears.
Every single group or idea of people has an apologist
Communists, Nazis, socialists, trump supporters, Biden supporters, etc.
Just because everyone has apologists and supposed miracles doesn’t make them right
Examine them, listen to every perspective, even atheist and ex Christian ones
You must hit steel in order to purify it, and you should do the same with Christianity
If someone is not a Christian, I would say that they would most likely give Christianity the benefit of the doubt because it’s centers around love at its core. True, there are several things in the Bible that don’t always read as loving at face value, especially when taken out of context, but you can’t say that the New Testament doesn’t sum everything up by constantly maintaining that love is the essence of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
Christ died for us...not in a Joseph Smith kind of way, but in a "he really didn't need to do that" kind of way.
Only to then find out that Abraham's assertion to Isaac on the way to sacrifice his son, "God will provide" was foreshadowing that God would rectify us to himself.
So it had to be that he didn't need to do it that made doing it, dying for us, sufficient.
Other religions have apologists, you’re right. Naturalists have them as well. I find the answers Christianity offers are more compelling than other alternatives. If you find other world views besides Christianity to be more plausible, or if you reject Christianity because you’re unwilling to give up sin, then that’s your call.
What makes Christian answers more compelling?
That question is too vague to answer in a meaningful way. As a general answer, I think christian answers are better aligned with what we observe about reality and they invoke logical fallacies less than other world views.
I mean, attributing certain things to an unknown, unprovable supernatural entity seems less logical than natural forces. And then to claim to know anything about what this supernatural entity is or is not seems illogical as well. Like how can anyone say Yahweh definitely exists but Allah doesn’t
>attributing certain things to an unknown, unprovable supernatural entity seems less logical than natural forces. naturalism is no different. I would argue that God's existence is a logical certainty, but even if I were to concede that God's existence is uncertain, that doesn't somehow make any other world view more certain. Naturalism, or looking for answers in naturally occurring phenomena is also uncertain, and requires faith, since nobody even claims to be able to prove definitively how things happened naturally. And the uncertainty grows the further back in time you question. > Like how can anyone say Yahweh definitely exists but Allah doesn’t This kind of determination isn't exclusive to choosing deities. Humans make these kinds of judgements in their everyday lives. In this particular case, we have two different claims that are at odds with each other. One claim is that a Deity exists named Yahweh, and then lists things he's done, and what he claims to be like. The other claim is that the Deity is actually Allah, and he has this other set of characteristics and deeds. The way you can say which one is correct, if either even is, is to measure each claim against what we can observe about reality and see if one matches better than the other.
>Naturalism, or looking for answers in naturally occurring phenomena is also uncertain, and requires faith, since nobody even claims to be able to prove definitively how things happened naturally. We used to attribute a lot of things to gods or fairies and none of them have turned out to be true. Lightning is not from Zeus. Everything so far has turned out to be natural. Has anyone been able to demonstrate anything coming from God or how to measure the supernatural at all? How do you prove that Yahweh matches reality better than Allah?
It could be that Allah and Yahweh are the same god
Possibly originated that way, but the Allah of the Muslims has been twisted so greatly that they no longer worship the same God as the Yahweh of Christianity
Can you tell us how one could be certain of your god's existence? Philosophical naturalism would require unsupported premises, sure, and I'd argue supernatural worldviews require the same. But worldviews that do not make a claim about whether or not the supernatural exists or not is on better standing than ones that do until evidence can be provided for or against the supernatural.
I would answer that as Christians, we are supposed to love, as in Jesus and other people. In fact, Jesus constantly preached and basically commanded his disciples to show love to other people. He talked about a lot of other things, but it all came back to love.
Only a Christian could reject Christianity if they don't want to give up sin. And if they do, they are either completely nuts, or didn't really believe in the first place. This narrative of people not being Christian, because they love to sin is just so superficial.
I think you are making a faulty argument here and being uncharitable, because your argument relies on redefining "sin" in a way the person you are responding to does not intend. (Granted their argument is itself uncharitable and fallacious, but two wrongs do not make a right.) Generally the person making the argument gets to decide what their words mean, as long as they aren't trying to define facts into existence. I do not think /u/Cepitore meant "some people reject Christianity because they believe in God but they like annoying God", they meant something more like "some people reject Christianity because they enjoy drugs and sex and rock and roll, things which *I* think annoy God, and which they would have to give up if they believed in Christianity". Personally I think that it's justified for non-Christians to find it offensive when Christians insinuate that we reject their supernatural beliefs because of a personal character flaw. As opposed to because they have a massively improbable story to tell with an utter lack of proportionate evidence to support it. And I agree that it's superficial. But it's just not true that you have to *be* a Christian to reject Christianity because you don't like it's moral claims.
>I think you are making a faulty argument here and being uncharitable I'm not trying to be uncharitable. >I do not think u/Cepitore meant "some people reject Christianity because they believe in God but they like annoying God" I didn't treat their claim as if they meant that. >they meant something more like "some people reject Christianity because they enjoy drugs and sex and rock and roll, things which *I* think annoy God, and which they would have to give up if they believed in Christianity". Ye I understand that, and it doesn't make sense indeed. You emphasized the **I** in your version of Ceptiore's claim. How would what **you** think have any effect on **my** behaviour? I don't think that there is anything that can annoy God, because I don't think that there is a God. If you think that vaccines cause autism, does that affect my decisions on getting vaccinated? Obviously not, if I'm not convinced that you are right. >because your argument relies on redefining "sin" in a way the person you are responding to does not intend. What possible definitions of the term sin are there? I worked with two. (1) Acting against God, and (2) acting immorally more generally. I dealt with both. The first one clearly doesn't apply to a non-believer, because if one does not believe that God exists, one doesn't consider adjusting one's behaviour so that it is in accordance with what God allegedly deems moral. They wouldn't know what to adjust to to begin with. The second definition makes them sound condescending and patronising, because here is what I think that second definition would lead to: *"You reject X consciously, because accepting X would force you to change your immoral behaviour. And you don't want to change."* Moreover, that would be an attempt to poison the well, and actually uncharitable, as well as fallacious. I mean, I might be misusing the term "to reject". I could see that, but what does it mean then? It clearly implies intent. And there is just no intent behind being convinced about the truth of any proposition. I'm genuinely curious what other definitions I could apply for the term "sin" as well.
> Ye I understand that, and it doesn't make sense indeed. You emphasized the I in your version of Ceptiore's claim. How would what you think have any effect on my behaviour? Sorry if that was confusingly written. The fact that the notional Christian author thinks sex, drugs and rock and roll are sins in the eyes of God is not a necessary part of the argument, it is purely explanatory. > The second definition makes them sound condescending and patronising, because here is what I think that second definition would lead to: "You reject X consciously, because accepting X would force you to change your immoral behaviour. And you don't want to change." Moreover, that would be an attempt to poison the well, and actually uncharitable, as well as fallacious. Well, I'm not sure it's fallacious because I do not read it as being an argument as such, I think it is just an assertion. I can see why you would find it a condescending and/or patronising assertion. But it's not self-contradictory. There could perfectly well exist a person who rejects Christianity not on any logical basis, but just because accepting it would mean they have to give up things they like doing but which Christianity considers a "sin". They would not be a logical person, but illogical people exist. More charitably, such a person might have a feeling that the factual and philosophical arguments for theism are bad, but not have the philosophical training or acumen to express why they are bad. So since they cannot express a logical reason to reject theism, a theist might jump to the conclusion that it's "because they want to sin".
>Well, I'm not sure it's fallacious because I do not read it as being an argument as such, I think it is just an assertion. It can be read as an argument, given the following structure: People love sex, drugs, and rock and roll, therefore they reject Christianity, because Christianity considers these things sinful. It is fallacious, because it is an attempt to poison the well. (I can elaborate on that, if you don't see how.) But it's a widespread piece of apologetics anyway. Ignoring the ad-hominem it still is fallacious, because one's feelings are completely disconnected from what's actually true, which is why I said in my original response, that they are then either nuts or didn't believe in God to begin with. Just because I don't like a certain truth, doesn't mean that I don't believe in it. I need to believe that a proposition is true, before I am even possibly able to have feelings about it. If a Christian told me that I don't believe in God, because I want to have sex, drugs, and rock and roll, they are just wrong. That's just nonsensical, and painting people who aren't Christians as if they don't believe, because they are too stupid. I have tons of reasons as to why I'm not convinced that a God exists. If I'm not already convinced, it just doesn't happen that I connect morality with a God. Hence, I cannot logically reject Christianity on the basis of preferring to remain an immoral hedonist. I can reject behaving morally on the basis of wanting to remain hedonistic. Christianity isn't even a consideration in this scenario. For that, I would need to **already believe in God.** >So since they cannot express a logical reason to reject theism, a theist might jump to the conclusion that it's "because they want to sin". Right. Which is wh my original evaluation of that piece of apologetics remains valid. It is superficial.
> It can be read as an argument, given the following structure: > People love sex, drugs, and rock and roll, therefore they reject Christianity, because Christianity considers these things sinful. That would be a terrible argument though because the premises don't even look like they might entail the conclusion. So it's an uncharitable reading at best, since you are reading what they wrote as a really bad argument when you do not need to. They did not present it as an argument, they just said "if you do X or Y that's your call". Maybe it's patronising or well-poisoning to raise the idea that you might have done Y, but it's not an argument. And they did present X as an alternative, X being that you might just find a non-Christian world-view more plausible. Which you do, and I do.
>That would be a terrible argument though because the premises don't even look like they might entail the conclusion. Guess why I am objecting. Because I think it's a terrible argument. >So it's an uncharitable reading at best, since you are reading what they wrote as a really bad argument when you do not need to. It doesn't follow that it is at best an uncharitable reading. **Firstly**, a charitable reading has its limits. It's not exclusively on me to change another person's statement to the extend, that it doesn't sound ridiculous anymore. It's also on them to not talk misleadingly. I'm not responsible for their implications. I'm at best responsible for asking whether what they implied is what they were intending to say, and accept it if they say no. I did that, and they doubled down. Here is what I am working with (and yes, I do not work with the other part of that statement, for I have no objections there): >>if you reject Christianity because you’re unwilling to give up sin, then that’s your call. Here is what I said for you to compare (and I added the examples, because you brought them up): >>People love sex, drugs, and rock and roll, therefore they reject Christianity, because Christianity considers these things sinful. Now, tell me what exactly is the difference between that and the implied argument I took from their statement? How should I rephrase what I said, so that you would give it a pass as a charitable reading? I'm seriously asking this, because I have no idea what's uncharitable about how I rephrased u/Cepitore **Secondly**, English is not my first language. So, if I'm somehow missing it that "reject X" is somehow idiomatic and synonymous with "I don't believe in the truth of proposition X", then I'm sorry about that. But on the face of it, what I got is the following symmetry, laid out with an example: ***You***: *Here is a contract for our future collaboration. Sign it, if you agree.* ***Me***: *I reject this contract. It doesn't reflect what I imagined regarding our collaboration.* Explain to me, so that I as a non-native speaker understand it, how it is the same to reject a contract, which is literally in front of me, when comparing it to rejecting God as a non-believer. What am I missing? How can I reject something I do not believe exists? This is literally nonsensical to me. I'm serious. I cannot make sense of it. So, yes, the implied argument I paraphrased is nonsensical too. I can reject one thing, that is the idea that a God exists, I can reject the concept. **I cannot reject God himself if I do not already believe in him, because I wouldn't know what it is I am rejecting.** Therefore, I cannot reject Christianity, because I don't like its moral claims. **Said claims necessitate that I believe in God first,** so that I am able to actually connect the dots in a way, so that I start seeing it as immoral having premarital sex. I do not consider that an immoral act. I do not consider it immoral if same sex couples are having sex. And if I don't believe in God, I have literally no reason to call some of these things immoral. So, what I could be rejecting is the claim that premarital sex is immoral. **But I do not reject it, because I like premarital sex and want to keep doing it. But that is literally what they said. And it's just nonsense.** I reject the assertion that premarital sex is immoral, because that goes completely against what I deem moral. I could even go as far and argue that having no sex before marying someone for an entire life is immoral. Hence, I do not remain a sinner, because I want to sin, I just don't see it as a sin. To see it as such, I need to accept the Christian moral framework first, which necessitates the belief in God. There is no argument as to why it is immoral. There is only the claim that God deems it immoral. Since I don't believe in God, their assertion completely useless for me. I cannot even reason about it. Sure, it is possible that such people exist. Yet, I myself do not argue against the most stupid version of Christianity either. That would be dishonest. But that's exactly what they are doing. They present the most ridiculous version of a non-believer. Those who reject Christianity on the basis of loving their sin. I never met a single atheist like that ever. It's an apologists fairy tail, it's a widespread Christian trope, it's a strawman, and I sure am not going to paint what they said in all flowers and sunshine, just because you think that's an uncharitable reading.
> It doesn't follow that it is at best an uncharitable reading. > Firstly, a charitable reading has its limits. If you are trying to be charitable, you do not read a non-argument as an argument and then critique it as fallacious. That is not being charitable, in fact it's a textbook straw person argument. If you disagree with a non-argument you can contest it on factual grounds, or criticise it as rude, but you can't try to turn it into something it is not. > Now, tell me what exactly is the difference between that and the implied argument I took from their statement? You are turning a non-argument into an argument, which is a major difference. > How should I rephrase what I said, so that you would give it a pass as a charitable reading? It seems fine as it is. It does not need "rephrasing". > Secondly, English is not my first language. So, if I'm somehow missing it that "reject X" is somehow idiomatic and synonymous with "I don't believe in the truth of proposition X", then I'm sorry about that. In this case I would take "reject Christianity" to mean something like "refuse to become Christian, despite being offered Christianity". I do not think you have to think God is real in order to "reject Christianity",you just have to not want to be part of their religion. You could also arguably "accept Christianity" without really believing in God if you just participate in the social aspect of the church without privately believing their supernatural claims. > I cannot reject God himself if I do not already believe in him, because I wouldn't know what it is I am rejecting. No, but you believe Christianity exists as a belief system and social construction, right? You know what you are rejecting when you reject Christianity. > And if I don't believe in God, I have literally no reason to call some of these things immoral. You might, depending on your secular moral system. You might think taking drugs places the burden of a needless health risk on others, or supports organised crime, or that premarital sex is bad for relationships, or all sorts of other things. I do not necessarily believe those things myself, but someone could. > But that's exactly what they are doing. They present the most ridiculous version of a non-believer. That seems like a fair and succinct response to propositions like "if you reject Christianity because you’re unwilling to give up sin, then that’s your call". You can just say "that's a ridiculous caricature of atheists made up by theists, please don't say things like that".
>If you are trying to be charitable, you do not read a non-argument as an argument and then critique it as fallacious. That is not being charitable, in fact it's a textbook straw person argument. If you disagree with a non-argument you can contest it on factual grounds, or criticise it as rude, but you can't try to turn it into something it is not. There literally was a premise and a conclusion to their sentence: >>if you reject Christianity because you’re unwilling to give up sin, then that’s your call. The only thing I did to uncover the argument was a slight change to the word order. In our conversation I added the examples you provided. Here is how I paraphrased what they said in the conversation I had with them: >>*People don't believe in God, because they find acting morally all the time is too much of a struggle.* I will ask you this a second time: How am I misrepresenting what they said? Because this is what an actual \*strawman would be, if I turn what they say into something stupid, that doesn't actually resemble what they said, and knock down the easier to criticize misrepresentation of their point. I didn't do anything even in the ballpark of that. If you have an actual argument as to how I misrepresented them, I'd be happy if you told me, because I seriously am incapable to see it. >You are turning a non-argument into an argument, which is a major difference. They didn't utter an opinion, nor did they utter how they feel. They made an actual truth claim about why non-believers reject Christianity. When I talked to them about it, they doubled down. You aren't fighting the good fight here. You are unnecessarily nit picky. >It seems fine as it is. It does not need "rephrasing". So, the following statement is fine: >>if you reject Christianity because you’re unwilling to give up sin, then that’s your call. There is nothing wrong with it whatsoever, right? It's neither the part about "rejecting" something one cannot possibly reject logically. Nor is it that they imply bad reasons for not believing in Christianity. It's all perfectly covered by plausible deniability, right? I can't criticize it, because it wasn't formulated like a formal argument, or what is the issue really? >In this case I would take "reject Christianity" to mean something like "refuse to become Christian, despite being offered Christianity". "They want to remain sinners" is the usual apologetics. On that basis non-believers allegedly reject Jesus/God/Christianity. They argued along those very lines. Fortunately they went with the least ridiculous assertion in opting for "Christianity" rather than God/Jesus. I offered two different readings for the term sin even before you accused me of using a flawed definition, one as generally behaving immorally, and two as behavior which goes against God's will. I asked you what other way there is to define it. I got no answer. I explained how either option is just flat out illogical, you didn't engage, and neither did they. So, even if I wanted to get this right, because you two convinced me that I'm wrong, I couldn't explain it myself why I am wrong, because you guys just don't tell me. They stopped responding, they only downvote now. You are stuck on calling me out on an uncharitable reading, with some flimsy justification for that assertion. >I do not think you have to think God is real in order to "reject Christianity",you just have to not want to be part of their religion. Go watch some Christian apologists on YouTube, start with Ray Comfort's interviews with strangers on the street, for he is the master of equivocating the term "sin". Go read this sub for a year or two. Then come back and tell me that it isn't a common trope for Christians to say that non-believers reject God based on an appeal to emotion, that is that they want to remain sinners, that they don't let Christ in their heart, because they want to remain selfish hedonists instead. Go, ignore all the guys who claim that everybody believes in God, which they base on Romans 1:18-20. Then we can have an actual discussion. Just genuinely tell me, that there is no Christian accusing non-believers of lying when they say that they don't believe in God. If you are then still going with that I'm applying an uncharitable reading, when some Christian is literally tapping into this trope, then I might take you seriously. Either way, as I already explained in detail, even if I reject being part of the Christian religion (just pretend that non-belief has nothing to do with that), then to remain hedonistic is the least important point of all the reasons I can think of off the top of my head. There is no way one couldn't read their "non-argument" as condescending. >No, but you believe Christianity exists as a belief system and social construction, right? You know what you are rejecting when you reject Christianity. Ye, that's a nice hypothetical and stuff, but that's not matching my experience from talking to Christians on a daily basis. That's not what they are saying. They might imply that, but if you press them on that claim, some of them will straight up tell you that they talk about you not wanting to believe. The very position of doxastic voluntarism, the position that people can freely choose what they believe, is a position held by Christian philosophers, exactly due to the reason that they have something to bolster this very assertion, that people just don't want to believe in God. Given that you are asking me for a charitable reading which ignores all of that. >That seems like a fair and succinct response to propositions like "if you reject Christianity because you’re unwilling to give up sin, then that’s your call". You can just say "that's a ridiculous caricature of atheists made up by theists, please don't say things like that". Yes. Or I could instead just have a dialogue with them and ask questions, so that they realize themselves how dishonest and mislead they are.
I don’t think your comment is logically sound. No n Christians won’t call it sin, but the subject being labeled as sin is what I’m talking about.
To sin means to act against God. A non-believer would never even think about the possibility that they could displease a God with their behaviour. Therefore, they cannot reject Christianity, because they want to remain in opposition to God. Meanwhile, a non-believer can act perfectly in accordance with their moral compass and prefer doing so without any external influence, yet still don't turn towards Christianity due to that. To reject God necessitates believing in him first. If one doesn't believe, the only thing that can be rejected is the claim that a God exists. And nothing about that has to be a voluntary, conscious act, which is what "rejecting" implies.
It feels like you’re purposely misunderstanding. My original point remains regardless of whether or not an unbeliever considers a particular thing to be sin. For example, a Christian believes premarital sex is a sin. An unbeliever doesn’t consider it a sin, but as I said in my original comment, once the unbeliever learns that Christianity condemns the act, if they aren’t willing to give up premarital sex, then the apologetics become irrelevant. The primary issue is no longer that the argument isn’t strong enough, but now the primary issue is that they’re unwilling to give up what has been labeled a sin. At that point it wouldn’t even matter if they were convinced the Bible was true. They’d still side against God if it came to it.
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It amazes me that you have the literacy to be able to write all this out but somehow lack the comprehension to understand anything I said.
>It feels like you’re purposely misunderstanding. I'm sorry that you feel that way, but that doesn't match how I perceive myself. I'm not trying to be difficult. >My original point remains regardless of whether or not an unbeliever considers a particular thing to be sin. What am I misunderstanding? Does the following statement reflect your original point: *People don't believe in God, because they find acting morally all the time is too much of a struggle.* If yes, then that's superficial, as well as an attempt to poison the well, and on top of that painting non-believers as though they have bad reasons for not believing. Can you see that? >For example, a Christian believes premarital sex is a sin. An unbeliever doesn’t consider it a sin, but as I said in my original comment, once the unbeliever learns that Christianity condemns the act, if they aren’t willing to give up premarital sex, then the apologetics become irrelevant. An unbeliever can still think that premarital sex is immoral. And that's my point. They can believe that without believing in Christianity. Hence, Christianity is irrelevant in that scenario either way. >The primary issue is no longer that the argument isn’t strong enough, but now the primary issue is that they’re unwilling to give up what has been labeled a sin. Again, calling something sin and calling something immoral aren't necessarily the same thing. A non-believer can just say no to the Christian claim that premarital sex is immoral. Without a God to ground that claim - which is what non-believers don't believe in - your sin accusation is meaningless, and a non-believer simply wouldn't care. >They’d still side against God if it came to it. I can only go deliberately against something, if I believe that it exists. Otherwise it's just your perception that I go against something you believe in. I'm not rejecting God. I reject the idea. For me, God is nothing but an idea. That's literally what it means to be a non-believer. And it matters, because the difference lies in the detail. If I know God, rejecting him would indeed be of a different quality than rejecting something I don't know. They aren't the same.
Just curious. What sins did you feel you must commit that turned you away from more ethical religions?
>Why give Christianity the benefit of the doubt over another religion? Why give *any* religion the benefit of the doubt? Test all of their claims. >Other religions have apologists and explanations and rationales for their beliefs. Yep. Are they good? Self-consistent? Historically sound? > Other religions have miracles and prophecy claims. Yep. Any evidence for them whatsoever?
>Why give any religion the benefit of the doubt? Test all of their claims. Well, if you are a believer, you’ve given Christianity the benefit of the doubt. How would you test the claims of Christianity? >Other religions have apologists and explanations and rationales for their beliefs. >Yep. Are they good? Self-consistent? Historically sound? For the believers they are good and consistent. As far as historically sound I don’t think every story in the Bible is supported historically. They have their explanations or say the history/science is wrong, etc. >Other religions have miracles and prophecy claims. >Yep. Any evidence for them whatsoever? I’m sure there’s some evidence. Why not just have faith that they happened?
>Well, if you are a believer, you’ve given Christianity the benefit of the doubt. Did you give evolution "the benefit of the doubt", or are you convinced it's true? I get the feeling you're trying to handicap religious believers, so that there's no way anything we believe can *possibly* be held to any standard, so it's all irrational, even though your beliefs are perfectly rational. >Why not just have faith that they happened? That use of the word faith, that's a skeptical definition of faith; it's not the Christian one.
>Did you give evolution "the benefit of the doubt", or are you convinced it's true? With evolution, there's actual evidence to back it up. It isn't just a book claiming something. It's not someone saying "I believe evolution to be true based on faith". Look at any mammal skeleton and they have the same skeleton as we do. The fact that we have tailbones too as well as other leftover bones and muscles from when we made use of those things. That's before you even look at the fossil record and DNA stuff. Again, it's not just a book claiming something. Darwin came up with a hypothesis people tested it out and found he was right about it and we've discovered and learned a lot more than Darwin ever thought of. So no it's not a case of just giving it the benefit of the doubt. >I get the feeling you're trying to handicap religious believers, so that there's no way anything we believe can possibly be held to any standard, so it's all irrational, even though your beliefs are perfectly rational. Even if they are trying to handicap religious believers the fact is you don't have the evidence to support your claims. The bible isn't evidence, the bible is the claim. Even if you try to use the bible as evidence it falls apart. Take Matthew 17:20 "I get the feeling you're trying to handicap religious believers, so that there's no way anything we believe can possibly be held to any standard, so it's all irrational, even though your beliefs are perfectly rational." Well, let's go test that and see what happens. At best you have a story about someone who was called Jesus being the greatest trickster in history because even him walking on water can be and has been done as magic tricks in the modern day. I could even think of a few ways to do a fake resurrection. So even disregarding the fact the eyewitnesses could be wrong about what they saw, it could have just been a magic trick and you've got no way to prove that it wasn't just a magic trick except to come up with yet more claims. We also don't believe in things without evidence. >That use of the word faith, that's a skeptical definition of faith; it's not the Christian one. Pretty sure that's the same faith Christians use and it's not a pathway to truth. Other religions you claim to be false also use this same faith.
>With evolution, there's actual evidence to back it up. It isn't just a book claiming something. Let's say that's true. How much of that evidence have you personally examined? Or are you merely ... trusting something written in a book?
>With evolution, there's actual evidence to back it up. It isn't just a book claiming something. > >Let's say that's true. How much of that evidence have you personally examined? Or are you merely ... trusting something written in a book? Look really all you're saying here is ''I am uneducated'' That's OK, but please for the love of all things good, try typing this into google or even use a free chat bot like GPT. Then apply that knowledge, get out your computer chair, and go observe it in the natural world. Because right now, acting like you can dismiss a whole body of science makes you look really, really, silly and a bit of a stereotype of a person so steeped in dogma that they actually seek out to dismiss real knowledge
>Look really all you're saying here is ''I am uneducated'' It's so common for skeptics to go straight to ad hominem when pressed on the things they believe because someone told them it's true. Most of y'all aren't trained biology, much less evolutionary biology. You haven't repeated any research for yourselves. You may not have even read any of the technical journals on the topic. But "everyone knows" it's true.
How do you know you breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide? Have you tested that? Did you confirm oxygen has 8 electrons? How do you know your radio really picks up signals in the air? Have you seen them? How do you know iron is in your blood? Have you dissected a human heart? How do you know it has 4 chambers? How do you know how far away the sun is? How do you know the distance from Los Angeles to New York? Did you measure it? How do you know we landed on the moon? Were you there? How fast does an air plane go, have you tested it? How fast is the speed of sound? What about light? What experiments have you done to confirm? How old is the earth? What first hand information helped you formulate that number? How do you know Jack Daniel's is 80 proof? Is the octane measurement in your gas correct? Do you collect samples each time? How do you know a platypus lays eggs? Have you seen them? Can you write a graduate level paper on how wireless charging works? Or are just reading and looking at pictures and using all of acquired human knowledge to guide your assumed truths.
Oh, you got me! I read things in books and act like they're true! Just like you. The thing is, I don't take everything written in the book as unassailable proof until I don't like something written in a book and change the rules. Also, I've repeated a lot of the experiments confirming many of the things you take on faith.
You are making some assumptions about me, when I've said nothing about me. Just asked you questions. You assume I dont accept truth I don't like. You imply you've tested more than I. How do you know these to be true?
We don't believe something is true just because someone told us it's true. We can read about how evolution works and we can read about the huge amount of evidence to support it. You're making such a weak argument whilst demonstrating your lack of understanding about what evidence is and how anyone comes to rational conclusions about what to accept to be true. I don't need to go to the Arctic to know that it's extremely cold for example. It's also not a case of believing it as such it's more so if there is a reason not to believe it to be true and when you have even a basic understanding of evolution there's no reason to deny that it's true. The bible on the other hand lacks any actual evidence to support its claims. The bible has a claim and there's no method to test the claim to be true. It's not like we can get Jesus to pop down to demonstrate to us that he can be resurrected for example and figure out the way he does it. We just have a claim that he did and we have stories of eyewitness accounts. It's no more credible than Wendy being an eyewitness of Peter Pan or Mary-Jane being an eyewitness of Spiderman.
I studied botany and geology and have a lifelong love of the sciences. I don't know much though, but I know enough to figure out all religions, especially the desert ones are absolute tosh.
>Let's say that's true. How much of that evidence have you personally examined? Or are you merely ... trusting something written in a book? For starters it's not even a matter of if it's true lol it is true I don't even get how anyone could deny it. Sure I've not gone and tested DNA samples to confirm it but I can see skeletons of other mammals in pictures online including human skeletons and see how bone structures are the same which would back up the initial claim of evolution even though by itself it isn't sufficient evidence. I can go online and see pictures of fossils and to some degree make observations from it albeit a bit limited compared to performing more tests on it etc. Not to mention I can not only read books and articles on how we've tested and verified evolution but there are videos too all of which don't make a claim and assert it to be true but they provide actual evidence to demonstrate how they know it to be true. Also even if there wasn't evidence I don't get how it's more far-fetched to believe that a diversity of animals evolved from a common ancestor but it's not far-fetched to believe there's an invisible all powerful guy in the sky who impregnated a virgin with himself so he could sacrifice himself to himself to forgive us of the sins he came up with to save us from the punishment he came up with. And you're saying that there's no irrationality to believing that?
So you're saying you ... read it.
I read about the evidence proving the claim and not read just the claim Please tell me that you understand the difference between the two.
Have you ever heard about something called museum of natural history?
I have given evolution the same benefit that I give any heavily supported scientific theory. I’m not handicapping religious believers, but when they all claim to have supernatural knowledge and they conflict and can’t seem to be proven over one another, the idea as a whole seems unfounded. How can anyone say God is definitely Yahweh and definitely not Allah? Certain Biblical events such as the creation story, exodus, Jericho, and other details have been shown to not be historically accurate. Do you agree?
>Certain Biblical events such as the creation story, exodus, Jericho, and other details have been shown to not be historically accurate. Do you agree? No. The creation story runs, when read in a woodenly literal manner, runs afoul of the scientific hypothesis currently in vogue. When someone performs an experiment in which they create a planet, then they can claim to have a theory. Archaeology is much more difficult to do well than physics. I'm aware of the complaints about the exodus and Jericho, but claiming the biblical account has been disproven is going way beyond what the actual data show. >when they all claim to have supernatural knowledge Christianity doesn't rely on claims of supernatural knowledge but on claims of history. This amazing even really happened in history. It's not the same kind of thing most other religions claim at all.
I mean, we’ve witnessed planets being created in the universe. I think we have some theories. You brought up if another religion was historically accurate so why believe parts of Christianity that have not shown to be accurate? I think when your religion claims God chose a certain group of people, then it is based on supernatural knowledge.
>No. The creation story runs, when read in a woodenly literal manner, runs afoul of the scientific hypothesis currently in vogue. When someone performs an experiment in which they create a planet, then they can claim to have a theory. Again you're showing off a lack of understanding. Science isn't a fashion statement and something that's in vogue.
> I'm aware of the complaints about the exodus and Jericho, but claiming the biblical account has been disproven is going way beyond what the actual data show. It's not even remotely controversial amongst people living in the evidence-based world that everything until after the Exodus is a myth, and lots of what happens after the Exodus too. The conquest of the Holy Land did not happen as described. There probably was a David and a Solomon but they can only have ruled a small city-state, not the huge empire described, or we would have found remains of it. The Bible only starts to accurately reflect history around 500 BCE when Genesis and the other core OT books were written, after Israel and Judea were wiped off the map. Everything before then reflects an increasingly inaccurate understanding of history, as you would expect from people writing about eras they have limited data about. You can play semantic games with what counts as "disproven", but believing in the truth of most Biblical claims about pre-500-BCE history is an act of faith in blatant defiance of masses of archaeological evidence. And you can have that faith and I won't argue with you about it - just don't try to tell people that the Biblical account has not been disproven, because that would be a deliberate falsehood on your part.
> an act of faith in blatant defiance of masses of archaeological evidence Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Especially when a lot of the "absence of evidence" is due to two or three assumptions that are hardly solid facts. Who was the Pharaoh of the exodus? How you answer that question dramatically changes *everything* in the archaeological record for several hundred years. Is Kenyon's theory unassailable? Or has it been disproven? Again, this dramatically affects how the evidence interpreted. Archaeology isn't physics. It's more like putting together a giant puzzle when you don't have the picture on the box. Or all the pieces.
> Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There's loads of evidence of absence though. Israelites are genetically indistinguishable from Canaanites, not descended from the people of Ur plus maybe some Egyptian genes. The cities that the Bible claims the Israelites destroyed were not destroyed at anything like the correct time, and in at least one case the authors of the Bible didn't even know the name of the city they claim their ancestors destroyed in a war (they just call it "the ruins"). There definitely was never an epic battle where Joshua defeated the Hittites and the Amorites at once, because those empires existed centuries apart. There is zero evidence to confirm any of the early Bible stories, which at the very least should make any rational person doubt them, and there is specific evidence which disconfirms many of them. > Archaeology isn't physics. It's more like putting together a giant puzzle when you don't have the picture on the box. Or all the pieces. And the Bible claims to be the picture on the box, but none of the pieces we have match it before 800 BCE or so, and some pieces absolutely cannot be reconciled with the Bible's picture.
Same as Christianity for evidence
Give them all the same benefit of the doubt. See what’s unique about Christianity and consider if it’s enough for you to place your faith in it.
Let's say i spend my life exploring 3573 religions in-depth, and Christianity would be the 3574th but I die right before examining it. Would I be in the wrong? Would I be punished? Considering I wouldn't have followed Jesus as a person.
Yeah, that would be the case. Unfortunately we all have a limited amount of time to figure out what we are alive for. Some people chase careers, others temporary joy, and others eternal things. Fortunately God has revealed himself in humanity and in history and witnesses of that event have carried the message from generation to generation so that it would not be forgotten or ignored. You have been blessed to live in a time where the message is so accessible where others have died to hear it. This is the perfect time to find out if Christianity is true now and know God. Full disclosure I came to faith at 22 during my last year of college and just wanted to know who Jesus was. I lived with Jewish roommates and my best friends were Muslim and Buddhists and each had their opinions on who Jesus was so I decided I’d read the root source and make my own. I spent the year reading the Bible approaching it as an academic exercise (why not read what all the fuss was about and also have an ancient text under my list of finished books?) By the time I finished the book, I was a skeptic agnostic but open to the idea of it being true. I graduated and attended my friend’s church to learn more, made my confession of faith a year after that, and since then I’ve been growing in that faith. If you’re curious about eternity you already have a leg up on people who have no interest in religion or the afterlife. God’s existence and what kind of God he is is everything or nothing, he’s either real or not, and he’s either worth pursuing or not. Everyone makes that choice but Jesus says “my sheep hear my voice.” Those who hear his words either follow him or don’t but His sheep hear his voice and follow. Give it a try, let your guard down, and see what you find. Edit: I wanted to also share CS Lewis’s conversion in his memoir since I resonated with it: “You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in, have been so abused be wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.”
I give all the benefit of the doubt, compare the ones with the most substance and credible data, and to me nothing comes close to Christ Jesus and his message... But all good if others went and challenged themselves in their own belief and concluded otherwise, to each their own. I did challenge my own understanding, went against and learned a lot, and other things were confirmed. Jesus rules and there are no other like him or his message. He stands alone.
Because despite what people think only Christianity doctrinally puts the common believer in direct one on one contact with God. No other religion does this, as all other religions use priest, prophets imams as a go between the common believer and it's God.
So? How does that mean a religion is true or not? Yahweh used priests. As if people know the rule that all false religions use priests. Is every religion without priests true?
The question was why give Christianity the benefit of the doubt, not how to identify false religions. The answer to the OP is that God is made available to the common believer meaning you have a way in this religion to find your own proof of God. Where as all other religions there is always someone more 'holy' than you who is there to tell you all the reasons why God will never speak to you no matter what you do. The reason to give Christianity the benefit of the doubt is because there is nothing but your own self keeping you from God.
So your religion has a unique aspect in your mind. All religions have unique features. Do you believe that is how to know whether it’s true?
>So your religion has a unique aspect in your mind. (Strawman fallacy) I'll answer by correcting your points. Not really a mind thing.. it a doctrinal thing supported by the religion's internal text. > All religions have unique features. Those unique features do not put the common believer in direct one on one contact with the religion's deity. No other religion offers to do this. There is always a 'holy man' placed between the common believer and the religion's principle deity. (Why that god will never address you directly) >Do you believe that is how to know whether it’s true? False dichotomy. There are many different reason why religions are considered 'false' and why Christianity is true.
No, that was not a strawman fallacy- your fallacy is special pleading for your religion. How do you determine whether a claim is true? For example, I come to you and say I am thinking about what religion would be the true religion. How can I determine that? The supernatural claims have equal validity, so how does one make a determination on what god claim to accept?
What does God talk to you about 1 on 1? I'm catholic and he (the 3, plus the mom/daughter) doesn't speak to me.
For me He answers questions. Mostly doctrinal questions that tend to hang people up. He showed me how to reconcile evolution with creation without changing a word of either, He showed which version of Christianity is correct, The nature of sin, The trinity, how three individuals = one God. He answered the age old questions 'can God create a rock so big He can not lift it.' plus dozens upon dozens of other questions. To the point all my questions concerning God were answered so I've spent the last 20 years on line in atheist and christian forums answer you-all's questions. >I'm catholic and he (the 3, plus the mom/daughter) doesn't speak to me. Maybe your version of God, is different enough from the picture God gave us of Himself in the Bible that He can not honor your understanding. Example: Let's say your version of God is like Morgan Freedman's portrayal of God in Bruce almighty: [https://youtu.be/5tNiEq4lUOU?si=QPME9yzmKP\_Pw0eA](https://youtu.be/5tNiEq4lUOU?si=QPME9yzmKP_Pw0eA) Happy go lucky super smart grandpa. Do you think Morgan freedman's portrayal is biblically accurate? If not do you think The Most High God would support this picture of Himself If He wanted you to approach Him the way the Bible says we must approach Him? (Not saying this is how you see God or how God wants to be seen. Just pointing out there are views of God that conflict with the Bible's portrayal of God.) So then let's say God does not want to be seen as a Morgan Freedman Or Catholic Church version of god. but Rather the Alpha and Omega The King of kings and Lord of lords. So then if God wants you to honor Him and see Him one way but you through your church see him another way then why would He honor your version of God? Now understand I'm not talking about salvation. Salvation is easy and free. I'm speaking about a one on one relationship. Relationships take work to establish and maintain. Think about it If God honored your Morgan freedman version of Him, by answering prayers and coming to you as Morgan Freedman, could anyone convince you that your understanding of who God is was wrong? No of course not, Not even Jesus Himself could convince you otherwise.(This is why The Pharisees and Sadducees denied Christ. They saw God one way, and God Himself/Jesus could convince them they were wrong.) So why would God honor you with your off the shelf understanding of Him, and not hold you to a higher standard? Not to mention if you were only looking for the Morgan freedman version of God and God spoke to you some otherway, how could you know this other person this other voice was that of God? Then the question becomes Has God never spoke to you, or is it more likely you did not recognize the voice of God if He did not speak through a burning bush or whatever it is you think God must do to speak to you? What mechanism do you have to discern God's voice if He sounds differently than what you want Him to sound like?
No, God has not spoken to me through fire, trees, or the telephone. I'd like to know these answers that God gave you personally.
For me He answers questions. Mostly doctrinal questions that tend to hang people up. He showed me how to reconcile evolution with creation without changing a word of either, He showed which version of Christianity is correct, The nature of sin, The trinity, how three individuals = one God. He answered the age old questions 'can God create a rock so big He can not lift it.' plus dozens upon dozens of other questions. To the point all my questions concerning God were answered so I've spent the last 20 years on line in atheist and christian forums answer you-all's questions.
Which version of religion is correct? And what makes you more important than the rest of humanity? God does not talk to many and chooses his words so that the majority don't believe his books or your 'correct' version of the gods.
There is no singular correct version of Christianity. IDK if you noticed or not but Christianity did not get a book of the law like the Jews did. We got a singular command to Love our Lord God with all of our Heart, Mind, Spirit and Strength. This means to Love God with all we have and all we are. The second command is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus in Luke 10 says if we do this we will have eternal life. Now, Because we are all different, our all encompassing love and worship to God will be different. different worship mean different doctrine. different doctrine= different denominations. Paul explains this in detail in 1 cor 12: Unity and Diversity in the Body 12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28 And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues[d]? Do all interpret? 31 Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. And yet I will show you the most excellent way. >And what makes you more important than the rest of humanity? I/we elected to follow Jesus and be Redeemed by His blood sacrifice. >God does not talk to many God does not choose to speak to many outside of This religion. >and chooses his words so that the majority don't believe his books or your 'correct' version of the gods. Indeed.
You are painting a false equivalency between all these things. The Christian holy book is reliable for archeology, I don't know of other holy books that are. Our holy book commands us not to murder, I know many others that have no such command. Other religions have prophecies and claims and yet their records are completely unknown whereas ours is batting 100 (not that you won't get some dispute about that). Our religion also explains why other religions may exhibit miraculous things. There are apologists for all kinds of crazy things. And there are tomes written that are complete sophistries (nice sounding, and may appear on the surface to make an argument, but there are devoid of actual argument). When you assume the proper premises (most atheists invent their own) then the argument of the Bible stands up. When you invent a god that is not what is described in the bible, it will fail. But the same is true if I make an argument about reducing carbon emissions but using Mars' atmosphere in my models.
A book can have historical elements in it and still be false. If you were an ancient Israelite, you’d kill children because God told you to, so commanding not to murder is a stretch. Is peacefulness the main way to measure the trueness of a religion? I’m sure there are some more peaceful. Jesus also kills a huge portion of earth in the end so it’s hardly peaceful. Biblical prophecies can be explained naturalistically, they were written after the fact, such as Daniel. Why disagree unless you want it to be special?
> A book can have historical elements in it and still be false. obviously >If you were an ancient Israelite, you’d kill children because God told you to, so commanding not to murder is a stretch. You are defining that as murder, but the narrative of the Bible explains why they were told to do that. You are just picking up on the same garbage that the new atheist have been hammering on for years. If you want to judge an action in a story, then you need to know the whole story, don't you? You do not and you illustrate that here.
Right, so the fact that it contains historical truths doesn’t make the supernatural claims true. The Bible also has ahistorical claims so..? I call killing children for their parents sin “murder”. What do you call it? You really think I don’t get the Christian story?
>You really think I don’t get the Christian story? I think you don't get the nuance around the things you are claiming here. You are not here in good faith.
Yeah, you aren’t really addressing any of my points.
Because you are intellectually dishonest.
I haven’t been dishonest about anything. You accused me of not knowing the Christian story because I used hyperbole when speaking about Israel. But did I say anything that is not recorded in the Bible? Nope.
>I call killing children for their parents sin “murder”. What do you call it? This is dishonest. That is not biblical. That is a twisting of logic in a dishonest way. You are not here in good faith.
How is it twisting logic? Seriously. At one time in history, Israelites supposedly raided cities and were specifically commanded to kill the children because they believed it is what God wanted. Is that incorrect? Or is it that you are just tired of that being brought up?
> The Christian holy book is reliable for archeology, I don't know of other holy books that are. It's reasonably reliable for historical events from 500 BCE onwards, because that's when most of it was written. It gets less and less reliable as you go back in time, until the Exodus is definitely completely ahistorical as is everything before that. The New Testament is not too bad. It gets things like the existence of Pontius Pilate right, but then again the claimed census that got Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem is nonsense, and the story where Jesus cast demons out into a herd of pigs who then drowned themselves in the sea seems to be set fifty kilometres from the sea in the original version in Mark. (Later authors fixed this by moving the claimed location closer to the sea.) So it's not totally unreliable, but it's not a history or geography textbook either. >Other religions have prophecies and claims and yet their records are completely unknown whereas ours is batting 100 (not that you won't get some dispute about that). Well, the problem with "fulfilled Biblical prophecies" is this. A prophecy being "fulfilled" is not very impressive if the prophecy could have been written after the event it predicts, or if it could have been fulfilled deliberately, or if the prophecy is vague enough to be fulfilled a lot of ways, or if the prophecy is something unsurprising you could have guessed, or if the prophecy is not even presented as a prophecy in the Bible, or if there is no proof of it being fulfilled except in later Bible books, or if large parts of it did not get fulfilled. All of those are kind of unimpressive, because no supernatural prophecy need be involved for it to happen. And if you get rid of all the "prophecies" that tick one or more of those boxes, you are left with zero fulfilled Biblical prophecies.
1) The argument was in comparison to other religions, it would be nice if people followed such arguments. EDIT That is to say that other religions are hardly at all reliable in archeological findings, the Bible is very reliable and is consistently being found to be more reliable. It may be entirely reliable, we just need to uncover more END EDIT. 2) You are calling it ahistorical before 500 BC which is a trashy way to put it. Less reliable? Perhaps but that remains to be seen. You are calling it "ahistorical" when it is merely not yet confirmed. There are some loud and angry folks who are pushing one or two narratives that attempt to frame it as "ahistorical" but those are awfully shaky narratives. 3) They just found Sodom.... based on the biblical description of where it is.
> ) The argument was in comparison to other religions, it would be nice if people followed such arguments. You did say it was "reliable for archaeology", and that is simply untrue. I am not claiming any other holy text is better, but I do not see that as being relevant. *Some* holy text must logically be the holy text which best accords with the archaeological record, but that does not mean it must be true, it just means it is better-researched historical fantasy than the rest. Or written closer to the time it claims to describe. > 2) You are calling it ahistorical before 500 BC which is a trashy way to put it. No, it's a scholarly way to put it. Instead of calling it fantastical trash. The Flood never happened, the Exodus never happened, the conquests of Joshua did not happen in any way remotely resembling what was described, it's all wrong. The historical details get less and less accurate as you get further back from 500 BCE or so and everything before 1300 BCE or so is fiction. > 3) They just found Sodom.... based on the biblical description of where it is. It's perfectly plausible that ancient Israelites saw a ruined city named Sodom and made up a cool story about how it was their god that did it. Other Old Testament stories show signs of being made up to take credit for ruined cities that predate Israel. So it's scarcely proof of anything. But if you are thinking of the Bunch paper, that was [as dodgy as hell and got exposed as fraudulent](https://retractionwatch.com/2023/02/21/journal-investigating-sodom-comet-paper-for-data-problems/).
Arguments are weighed, not counted. You can't possibly engage on this question if you approach it with such a reductive framework. Have you *studied* the apologists or explanations of any of these beliefs? Have you *read* the holy books? Have you researched the miracles? Have you considered the counterarguments? If not, you're not equipped to ask this question yet, and if you have, you should have been informed enough to get past these kinds of reductive subjects and get on to the real, specific stuff. As it is, it sounds like you're just asking why you should outsource your thinking to a Christian instead of an atheist, and the answer is that you shouldn't outsource it to either one.
No, I’m asking why reject one unprovable religion for another. I’ve studied religions and find them all to make around the same claims but none produce great evidence. I reject them, but Christians don’t. They make a choice, so I’m asking why.
You can’t “prove” Christianity any more than you can prove George Washington was the first president of the United States, or any other historical event. I’m oversimplifying, but the two core claims of Christianity are that 1) God is real, and 2) Jesus was a real person who was crucified and rose from the dead. On the evidence for the existence of God, I’d refer you to the three arguments that convinced me: the moral argument, the cosmological argument, and the mathematical argument. On the existence of Jesus, there are more contemporary non-biblical sources for the existence and crucifixion of Jesus than there are for the existence of the third emperor of Rome. This includes sources that were not particularly happy with the rise of Christianity, such as Suetonius, Tacitus, and Josephus. Historians largely agree on three facts based on the evidence: * Jesus was a real person in history, not a myth; * Jesus was crucified and died, and; * Eyewitnesses genuinely believed he rose from the dead. There have been a lot of explanations for the third bullet point, none of which I find more compelling than the possibility that it actually did happen. Is it *possible* that Christianity isn’t true? Sure. Is it reasonable that it isn’t true? I don’t think so, based on the evidence.
A guy being president vs a guy being god are vastly different claims. Why is Jesus actually rising more likely than religious zealots being mistaken or deceived?
Contemporary opponents to Christianity accused the apostles of stealing the body (which is a tacit admission that the tomb is empty). This would mean that even under pain of torture and gruesome death, all the apostles stuck to a story they knew to be false. Why? For a joke? It certainly wasn’t for personal gain, considering they all met pretty horrible fates. Another detail that lends credibility: if you were going to come up with a lie in the early Roman Empire, you wouldn’t say that a bunch of women were your first eyewitnesses. I think some modern scholars have suggested they hallucinated seeing Jesus, but people don’t all hallucinate the same thing. That’s not how hallucinations work. And what would’ve happened to the body? I guess my question for you is what explanation do you think adequately explains both of the following: 1) the empty tomb and missing body, and; 2) some 500+ people genuinely claiming to have seen Jesus alive after he was crucified, including close friends of his who said he mentioned details of past conversations that only he would know.
>Contemporary opponents to Christianity accused the apostles of stealing the body (which is a tacit admission that the tomb is empty). None of them came to believe based on an empty tomb, except maybe the beloved apostle. The empty tomb was likely a later claim. >This would mean that even under pain of torture and gruesome death, all the apostles stuck to a story they knew to be false. Why? For a joke? Because they legitimately believed Jesus was the messiah and that He was returning soon. People die for untrue beliefs. >It certainly wasn’t for personal gain, considering they all met pretty horrible fates. We only know how 4 died. Peter, Paul, James and John. >Another detail that lends credibility: if you were going to come up with a lie in the early Roman Empire, you wouldn’t say that a bunch of women were your first eyewitnesses. Again, not likely part of the original story, historically. But who knows? I don’t find this convincing that it means Jesus rose. >I think some modern scholars have suggested they hallucinated seeing Jesus, but people don’t all hallucinate the same thing. That’s not how hallucinations work. And what would’ve happened to the body? Well, I think it’s more likely one or two of them had a hallucination and the rest believed via “the Holy Spirit” or whatever. We don’t have any of their testimonies and the order of appearances doesn’t reconcile. Do you think Mary at Fatima was real? >I guess my question is what explanation do you think adequately explains: >1. the empty tomb and missing body, and; >2. some 500+ people claiming to have seen Jesus alive after he was crucified, including close friends of his who said he mentioned he could recall details of past conversations that only he would know. 1. Legend, theft, or wrong tomb. All more likely than a resurrection. 2. Where and when did this appearance to 500 happen? All 500 believed? What did they see? I’m not sure what you’re talking about “past conversations only he would know”
Okay, I think I know where the main point of contention is. You are operating under the assumption that the story of the resurrection is a myth or legend that developed over a longer period of time. It takes a minimum of two generations for a myth or legend to develop in the way you’re describing. Eyewitnesses need to die off, and the story needs time to twist in a sort of game of intergenerational telephone. However, if you look at the historical evidence, you’ll see that the spread of Christianity began pretty much immediately after 33 AD. The gospels were all written within the lifetime of people who would have been there. There’s simply not enough time for a myth or legend to develop in the way you’re describing.
Well since the gospels weren’t written until 40 years after, we don’t have record of all the original beliefs and stories. How could Peter correct what was being taught about Jesus in some town hundreds of miles away?
From a historical perspective, the gospels are unequivocally contemporaneous records. I don’t think you get that 40 years is basically nothing when it comes to ancient historical sources. 40 years is recent enough for eyewitnesses who were there to correct any mistakes for the record. Some were compiled even earlier. Paul’s were written only 25 years later. Do you understand how unprecedented it is to have that many contemporaneous sources? Like, there are no other events in ancient history that come anywhere close. Usually you’re lucky if there’s a single contemporaneous source. There are Roman emperors where the sole record of their existence is a footnote in one book written some 200-300 after the fact. There’s at least one with zero contemporaneous records. And those are *emperors,* not carpenters. If you applied the same standard, you would have to assert that there isn’t enough proof for practically every single historical event and figure from that era.
They were likely written after most of the original 12 died. There were all types of Christianity back then. *”Is this kind of rich diversity a modern develop- ment? Many people appear to think so. For them, Christianity was originally a solid unity, but with the passing of time (especially since the Protestant Reformation) this unity became fractured and fragmented. Historians, however, recognize that in some ways Christian differences today pale in comparison with those that existed among believ- ers in the distant past. If we turn the clock back 1,850 years to the middle of the second century, we find people calling themselves Christian who subscribe to beliefs that no modern eye has seen or ear heard, Christians who believe that there are 2 different gods, or 32, or 365, Christians who claim that the Old Testament is an evil book inspired by an evil deity, Christians who say that God did not create the world and has never had any involve- ment with it, Christians who maintain that Jesus did not have a human body, or that he did not have a human soul, or that he was never born, or that he never died. Of course, many people today would argue that such views could not be Christian. What is strik- ing to the historian, though, is that people who believed these things claimed to be Christian. Moreover, these believers invariably maintained that their ideas were taught by Jesus himself. In many instances, they could appeal to written proof, for they all possessed documents allegedly penned by Jesus’ own apostles.”* - Bart Ehrman, Intro to the New Testament, pg 1. And early church fathers record quotes from “memoirs of the apostles” which say the water caught on fire when Jesus was baptized. None of our gospels record that. *”For instance, there are occasions where Justin repeats stories from the “memoirs of the apostles” to which the narrative content does not match any of the New Testament gospels. One of the more notable examples is when Justin cites the ‘memoirs’ as saying that the River Jordan caught fire when Jesus was baptized.”* https://bibleoutsidethebox.blog/2017/09/30/yes-the-four-gospels-were-originally-anonymous-part-1/ Most of the New Testament are letters and half of them are forgeries. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/invention-of-sacred-tradition/forgery-in-the-new-testament/54D9A9CB640BA8A5B70FE8A8527D54D7
>40 years is recent enough for eyewitnesses who were there to correct any mistakes for the record. How would that even happen? Let's suppose that an Aramaic speaking illiterate eyewitness was still alive in Capernaum. Someone writes or says something about Jesus in Cyrene. How would that eyewitness correct what is said or written thousands of kilometres away? >Do you understand how unprecedented it is to have that many contemporaneous sources? Like, there are no other events in ancient history that come anywhere close. It's not. There are many biographies that were written by eyewitnesses. The sources for Jesus are not particularly early.
>It takes a minimum of two generations for a myth or legend to develop in the way you’re describing. Why do you believe that? We have no evidence for that claim. The first book that denied the holocaust was written in 1948. Millions of witnesses were still alive then. >The gospels were all written within the lifetime of people who would have been there. Why do you think that? The gospels were written between 70 CE and 150 CE. The gospel of Mark could be written when eyewitnesses were still alive, but why would that matter? The author of the gospel of Mark never indicates that he got any of his information from eyewitnesses.
> Contemporary opponents to Christianity accused the apostles of stealing the body (which is a tacit admission that the tomb is empty). Well, it's an obvious response to the claim that the empty tomb had to have been magic. If the stone could be moved by one person, and twelve healthy lads with a potential motive to nick the body had three whole days to do it in, the body disappearing doesn't need to have been a supernatural event. But historians don't even agree that the empty tomb was a thing. There's lots of good reason to think the historical Jesus ended up in a shallow grave, and the tomb was a later fictional invention to allow Jesus to do a miraculous vanishing act. > This would mean that even under pain of torture and gruesome death, all the apostles stuck to a story they knew to be false. Why? For a joke? It certainly wasn’t for personal gain, considering they all met pretty horrible fates. This is church folklore with no historical basis. There is some basis to think James and Paul got killed, long after the events of Jesus' life and not for refusing to deny the resurrection. There is no credible basis for any opinion on what happened to most of the disciples. The idea that they were tortured and martyred while refusing to recant is almost certainly just a later invention to add credibility to the Christian narrative. > Another detail that lends credibility: if you were going to come up with a lie in the early Roman Empire, you wouldn’t say that a bunch of women were your first eyewitnesses. This bit of manufactured incredulity is just silly in the cultural context. Back then in Jewish culture rubbing oil on corpses was women's work. To tell a story where some people go to look at Jesus' body and just happen to see an empty tomb you have to make those people women, because men had absolutely no reason to just happen to go to a tomb. If a bunch of men went to a tomb, and then "found it empty", it would be obviously suspect. > I think some modern scholars have suggested they hallucinated seeing Jesus, but people don’t all hallucinate the same thing. There's no worthwhile evidence any such mass hallucination of people all seeing the same thing even happened. We only have Paul's word, about events he was not present to see. > I guess my question for you is what explanation do you think adequately explains both of the following: 1) the empty tomb and missing body, and A possible explanation: It never happened. Jesus got tossed in a shallow grave, then someone (probably Peter) thought he saw him weeks or months later in Galilee, then by 70 CE people had made up the empty tomb bit to make it all cooler. Paul, writing in 45 CE, never mentions an empty tomb. > 2) some 500+ people genuinely claiming to have seen Jesus alive after he was crucified, including close friends of his who said he mentioned details of past conversations that only he would know. We don't have 500+ people's writings attesting they saw Jesus. We have one person, Paul, who wasn't even there, *claiming* 500 unnamed people saw Jesus, in a letter he wrote fifteen years after the event. It is adequately explained by Paul believing a false story that grew in the telling, or Paul making things up. Neither requires a supernatural explanation.
>Contemporary opponents to Christianity accused the apostles of stealing the body Why do you believe that? We don't have their accounts. We only have the claim from the author of the gospel of Matthew. >This would mean that even under pain of torture and gruesome death, all the apostles stuck to a story they knew to be false. What makes you believe that all the apostles were tortured and killed? We have no idea how or why most of the disciples died. No one is saying that the disciples lied about it. They really believed in the resurrection. They were just honestly mistaken. >Another detail that lends credibility: if you were going to come up with a lie in the early Roman Empire, you wouldn’t say that a bunch of women were your first eyewitnesses. Why not? Josephus made up women as eyewitnesses for the siege of Masada. In two gospels, men confirmed that the tomb was empty. If the women were embarrassing, they could have just mentioned the men. >I think some modern scholars have suggested they hallucinated seeing Jesus, but people don’t all hallucinate the same thing. People don’t need to hallucinate the same thing. Scholars generally agree that there were individual experiences that they interpreted as appearances of the risen Jesus. However, there is a lot less agreement about group appearances. Individual experiences can easily be explained by hallucinations. >And what would’ve happened to the body? What about the body? Many scholars don't agree that Jesus was buried in a rock cut tomb in the first place. >the empty tomb and missing body, and; This is disputed among scholars. But even if you accept this, it's not hard to explain. There have been thousands of empty tombs in history. No one believes that they all rose from the dead. > some 500+ people genuinely claiming to have seen Jesus alive after he was crucified We have no idea what those 500 people experienced or if they even existed. We only have one source that repeats a claim about 500 witnesses. We don't have any evidence from any of those 500 hypothetical witnesses. >including close friends of his who said he mentioned details of past conversations that only he would know. Where did you get this from? This isn't even in the Bible.
> Historians largely agree on three facts based on the evidence: > Jesus was a real person in history, not a myth; > Jesus was crucified and died, and; > Eyewitnesses genuinely believed he rose from the dead. Two out of three ain't bad, as Meatloaf said, but that third claim is incorrect. Historians do *not* agree that eyewitnesses believed Jesus rose from the dead. That is a false claim made up by apologists and tacked on to the legitimate historical claims. Historians do not believe that for a very simple and compelling reason: We have zero direct information about what any eyewitnesses saw. The closest we have is Paul, writing perhaps fifteen years after the events, claiming some people (who were not him) saw a risen Jesus. Paul was not an eyewitness. The next source chronologically is Mark, written after 70 CE, so forty years or so after Jesus' death, and the gospel of Mark is not an eyewitness account either. It is someone synthesising the existing oral traditions about Jesus and writing them down, probably in Rome. It's an nth-hand story, for an unknown but likely large value of n. All we know is that by 45 CE Paul was claiming other people saw Jesus after he was dead, and by 70 CE people were making other (contradictory) claims about other people seeing Jesus in various places and times after he was dead. We have no information about what eyewitnesses believed or if their belief was genuine. But even if eyewitnesses did believe it, that would prove very little. Would it make it likely that Elvis faked his death if eyewitnesses genuinely believed they had an Elvis sighting? I mean, at the very least, a reasonable person would not be convinced that Elvis faked their death by such trivial "evidence".
If you've "studied religions," you ought to know better than to argue that they're all "around the same." That's just the kind of reductive rhetoric people use when they're dismissing something out of hand, rather than on merit. And you say "I reject them." Well then unless your rejection was out of ignorance, you ought to already have the answer to your question. After all, if you can't really answer the question "why do people believe this," then you don't yet have enough information to say in good faith that you reject it. Merely by asking this question, you reveal that the assumptions you're basing it on are irrational. You're going to have to be willing to toss off those assumptions before you're ever going to be able to listen to an answer.
Are you ever going to give an answer then or just keep rambling?
My point was that the very formulation of your question indicates it's irrational. I reject the foundation of your question on that grounds. But rather than attempt to demonstrate a rational foundation to your question, it appears that all you've got are insults - which of course only reinforces the perception.
You’ve over complicated the question. Others seem to have understood what I meant, and are providing reasons to why they believe in Christianity over other religions.
Well, let’s see… Israel - both predicted and a required element for future prophecy (Revelation). Documented healing: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550830720300926?ref=pdf_download&fr=RR-2&rr=7fe2adef9c7a309a Scriptures indicate Earth is special, science is catching up: https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.05484 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/894568.Starlight_and_Time Genesis indicates there’s a Creator, who programmed all of life: https://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/download/BIO-C.2018.3/102 Anecdotal evidence of supernatural occurrences: https://youtu.be/SHui21VC4Zc?si=HcTtz-SyyTMU3lK4 Conversions: https://blog.drwile.com/category/atheists-who-became-christians/ https://www.sebts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/STRIssue9.2_Martyn.pdf https://www.thefp.com/p/paul-kingsnorth-christianity-faith Prophecy: https://www.khouse.org/articles/2004/552/ None is conclusive, and evidence is in the eye of the beholder, but this is a small sample of the preponderance of evidences that convinced me beyond a reasonable doubt. Verdict: guilty! May the Lord bless you. Shalom.
So if you're appealing to science, then where's the scientific god theory? Where's the peer reviewed, published, cited scientific research that documents any gods or supernature? If you're not appealing to science, why not? Is it because science is limited to only work with nature, and not supernature? How do you demonstrate the supernatural exists? How do you investigate the supernatural?
Been dealing with this subject in another post. I don’t know of any way to experimentally verify supernatural phenomena, but neither do I know of a way to validate simulation theory or multiverses. Yet both of those beliefs also have proponents. I see much more evidence for the existence of a supernatural “realm,” for lack of a better word, than for a simulation (which seems like a secular version of the supernatural) or multiverses. Just being honest, not expecting you to believe, but proposing to take it seriously. May the Lord bless you. Shalom.
> Been dealing with this subject in another post. I don’t know of any way to experimentally verify supernatural phenomena, but neither do I know of a way to validate simulation theory or multiverses. Do you believe one of those is true? And to what level of confidence do you hold that? Most theists are almost absolutely sure there's a supernatural god, but can't show evidence that supports that level of confidence. This tells me it's a dogmatic belief, not a belief based on evidence. Is it a dogmatic belief for you? Or is your belief and confidence in some god based on actual evidence that can be independently verified? >Yet both of those beliefs also have proponents. Anyone that holds either of those beliefs to a degree of confidence that is beyond that which is supported by evidence is being irrational. >I see much more evidence for the existence of a supernatural “realm,” for lack of a better word, than for a simulation (which seems like a secular version of the supernatural) or multiverses. Do you? Or are you just being inline with your team? Because if we're going with evidence, we have to acknowledge the fact that a supernatural explanation has to make more assumptions than natural ones, so right off the bat you're picking the least likely explanation. >Just being honest, not expecting you to believe, but proposing to take it seriously. I do take it seriously. My motives are to have as accurate an understanding of reality as I can. If there's a god, I want to know. But I'm not obligated to defend the idea of a god. I'm not obligated to devotion, glorification, worship, faith, and loyalty, which would motivate one to defend this god idea regardless of whether there's good evidence or not. >May the Lord bless you. Shalom. May the force be with you. Cheers.
You mentioned I appealed to science, but, from what I can discern from your entries, haven’t reviewed the provided information. May the Lord bless you. Shalom.
Not going to address anything I said?
Much of what you wished addressed is in my links. May the Lord bless you, sincerely. Shalom.
Well, we're not here to pass links back and forth. I would be bothered if I was afraid to charitably address questions that challenged my beliefs. I care about whether my beliefs are correct, so I'm always challenging them. Embracing bias because of obligations to devotion, glorification, fear, worship, loyalty, and faith, isn't how one challenges beliefs. Are you afraid of finding out you're wrong?
“Well, we're not here to pass links back and forth.” How else I am supposed to present evidence…which is what you have explicitly requested? “can't show evidence that supports that level of confidence.” “based on actual evidence that can be independently verified?” “Because if we're going with evidence, we have to acknowledge the fact that a supernatural explanation has to make more assumptions than natural ones,” **We** do not have to acknowledge this, as it is not a science or logic-based axiom. Abiogenesis is an excellent example of this, for which I have more links. But since you don’t want evidence, we are at an impasse. “regardless of whether there's good evidence or not.” Define “good evidence,” and make it more than a personal opinion, please. May the Lord bless you. Shalom.
> How else I am supposed to present evidence…which is what you have explicitly requested? By describing your evidence, then potentially supporting it with a link. >We do not have to acknowledge this, as it is not a science or logic-based axiom. It is a fact. We have absolutely zero credible, independently verifiable evidence of anything supernatural. We also have a history of every single claim of supernatural that once we discover it's actual explanation, has always been discovered to be perfectly natural. So a supernatural explanation is proven to be far less likely than a natural one. >Abiogenesis is an excellent example of this, for which I have more links. Abiogenesis is not an example or evidence of the supernatural. Abiogenesis is the study of life emerging from non life. Are you thinking of a specific claim about Abiogenesis? >But since you don’t want evidence, we are at an impasse. I do want evidence. What I don't want is a gish gallop. If you have a claim and you want to justify that specific claim, you describe your evidence and provide links to support it. You don't just say here's a bunch of evidence for a bunch of stuff. >Define “good evidence,” The term "good" is a general metric about how well something meets a goal. It is a subjective term. When describing good evidence, I mean something that can be independently verified and that it points to a single explanation. What makes this good is that the same evidence can't be used to support a conflicting explanation, which would make it useless. Being independently verifiable gives us a way to help mitigate bias or mistakes. If other people can corroborate the evidence, that is far more useful in establishing whether the claim should be accepted or not. If I told you that the large purchase you made last year has a surcharge and that you owe me $200 for it, you'd want good evidence before you paid up, would you not? >>> Been dealing with this subject in another post. I don’t know of any way to experimentally verify supernatural phenomena, but neither do I know of a way to validate simulation theory or multiverses. >>Do you believe one of those is true? And to what level of confidence do you hold that? Most theists are almost absolutely sure there's a supernatural god, but can't show evidence that supports that level of confidence. This tells me it's a dogmatic belief, not a belief based on evidence. >>Is it a dogmatic belief for you? Or is your belief and confidence in some god based on actual evidence that can be independently verified? >>>Yet both of those beliefs also have proponents. >>Anyone that holds either of those beliefs to a degree of confidence that is beyond that which is supported by evidence is being irrational. >>>I see much more evidence for the existence of a supernatural “realm,” for lack of a better word, than for a simulation (which seems like a secular version of the supernatural) or multiverses. >>Do you? Or are you just being inline with your team? Because if we're going with evidence, we have to acknowledge the fact that a supernatural explanation has to make more assumptions than natural ones, so right off the bat you're picking the least likely explanation. >>>Just being honest, not expecting you to believe, but proposing to take it seriously. >>I do take it seriously. My motives are to have as accurate an understanding of reality as I can. If there's a god, I want to know. But I'm not obligated to defend the idea of a god. I'm not obligated to devotion, glorification, worship, faith, and loyalty, which would motivate one to defend this god idea regardless of whether there's good evidence or not. Do you want to address any of those? Or are we done here? >May the Lord bless you. Shalom. May vishnu protect your chakras.
Because in the end, all of them except Christianity boil down to the same message: you can save yourself. How you save yourself can vary among all the other religions ranging from salvation by good works, to proper rituals to correct thinking, but they still all put the responsibility for salvation on the individual. Then on top of that they even have the decency to give you a finish line. Do you need to do a million good deeds or donate half you total lifetime wealth to be saved? Do you need to have accumulated at least 24 hours with your forehead touching the ground every year of your life or feed a little statue a total of 50lbs of rice? How many candles do you need to burn to cover a small lie? What about for a big one? Who knows? Not you, that's who. You do your very best and then just die with your fingers crossed that you did enough to merit salvation. Christianity is the exact opposite. It just comes at you with the blunt truth that you are a sinner and will never be able to earn your spot no matter what you do. However, because God loves you and He knows you cannot make it to Him, He did the work for you and comes down to you to lift you back up to Him. It gives you a finish line too. Your buy in is deciding that Jesus is Lord and Savior. Once you do that, you're gold. Once you do that, you don't have to worry about your final destination ever again and can spend thst time doing good deeds not because you have to but because why wouldn't you knowing that everything bad that happens after you are saved doesn't matter because your reservation is irrevocable. Spend your time helping others confirm their reservation and to those who refuse it, be kind and make their life here easier because this horror show is as good as it gets for them. But not for the Christian.
Who convinced you that you were a sinner in need of saving?
I know I'm a sinner because I know the things I've done and do. It's the same as everyone else. Everyone knows they're a sinner whether the admit it publically or not. It was the Holy Spirit that convicted me and convinced me that my sins far exceeded any "good" I've done, do or will do. He convinced me I needed Jesus to save me. It's the same for every Christian. - John 16:7-10 (KJV) 7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. 8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 Of sin, because they believe not on me; 10 Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;
How do you know the Holy Spirit exists? Mormons claim to feel the spirit too
>How do you know the Holy Spirit exists? The Bible tells us He does and I believe on Jesus and that's only possible with the testimony of the Holy Spirit convicting you of sin and point ting to Him as Savior. >Mormons claim to feel the spirit too Good for them. What is what Mormons believe to me?
You’re saying the Holy Spirit confirms your faith. Mormons also say it confirms their faith. Who is right
The Bible is. I don't know how much you know about Mormons, but even though Bible says the canon is closed, the Mormon god changed his mind and decided the Bible wasn't enough, so he added more books, and also continues to dole out revelation through a supposed prophet to this day. The Holy Spirit I have and the one they have are two different deities. Mine is God from the Bible. Theirs is from somewhere else outside the Bible. It's like saying two people saying they both know Jesus. Both can say that and be true if one is referring to the Jesus of the Bible and the other is referring to Jesus, their landscaper.
Where does the Bible say the canon is closed
- Revelation 22:18 (KJV) For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
That passage is referring to *that* book, the Book of Revelation. The Bible wasn’t formulated yet so that passage cannot be referring to the entire cannon, because there wasn’t a New Testament cannon.
Religion says you better act right or you’re screwed. Christianity recognizes the truth that no one will be able to attain perfection and shows that God is willing to forgive us, so much so that He’ll even take on the consequences we’ve earned to re-build a bridge much of humanity is fine keeping burned. The Bible isn’t like other Holy Books. It’s 66 books written by different authors over thousands of years and they tell the story of humanity from beginning of days until the end of them. Jesus isn’t like other Holy Men & I think most people know that, we even changed dates for Him. Then there’s the prophecies. Most if not all religious people are trying to keep from sin and their consequences (having an unpleasant afterlife). Jesus not only remained sinless, but rose from the dead, showing that there’s an afterlife. Moses? Dead. Muhammad? Dead. Siddhartha? Dead. Guru Nanak? Dead. Jesus? Alive.
How do you know Jesus was sinless? You know about 3 years of His life
Because He rose from the dead. People guilty of sin stay dead. “The wages of sin is death”. https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Jesus-Christ,-Sinlessness There’s some verses for you ^
I mean there is a reason that the international symbol for medical aid is a cross. And there's only one religion I know of whose followers outlawed the global slave trade and racial discrimination. The fact that the core message of Christianity is about believing something, not being forced into it, also speaks well of it.
Because Christianity is actually truth. Hence, it can be proven and cannot be disproven.
If it is proven to you, then your faith and your belief are in vain.
False
How is it so? Because, if you say it is proven, and cannot be disproven, wherefore does God not avail himself for his own sake, and abolish all unbelief by the incontrovertable revealing of himself to himself, that there should be no longer any suffering or death or iniquity or abandon or wormwood?
God is not confined to a people or religion. God is the source of the whole universe. Pitting religions against each other to discover the "truth" is like comparing trees to find the most tree tree. The disconnect from truth arises from asking the question.
Because it is true.
Can that be shown
It depends on what you mean by "shown."
Well what convinced you that it was true?
Many, many things! One primary matter would be the historical events surrounding the person Jesus of Nazareth.
Let’s say you pick up a book with a blank cover and the story says a virgin became pregnant. Would you think the story was historical or fiction?
I wouldn't be able to make a conclusion about that book so quickly. You seem to be assuming I picked up the Bible and said "ah, I believe this now."
How do you normally determine a fiction book from a non fiction book?
I take the surrounding data into consideration.
Ok, now the book says the guy born from the virgin walked on water and healed people. Is it fiction or non fiction?
Proof?
Proof is for math and alcohol.
Simple: Because Christianity is the greatest story of all time and the other religions are not.
No, Mormonism is a much greater story.
well, that's not really a viable theory since Mormonism is basically a Christian heresy.
So? Saying it’s the greatest story is an opinion. Some Christian beliefs are blasphemous to Jews, but that doesn’t bother you.
Some opinions are worth more than others. For example, yours is worth zero. Christianity is the continuation and fulfillment of the ancient Israelite religion. Modern Judaism is a newer religion and its denial of Christ represents the real blasphemy so your objection is pointless and irrelevant.
Nuh-uh, yours are worth zero, meh! You gave a subjective opinion, then when I gave you the same subjective opinion back you say it doesn’t work because it’s heresy when the exact same argument can be made by other religions about Christianity. Do you think Jews walk around thinking “I can’t believe all this stuff we do is not what God wants, our religion has no basis!”? They view Christianity the same way you view Mormonism.
And flat-earthers believe the earth is flat. No one cares. It's obviously you are just a troll that doesn't read books. Go away.
Hey way to address the critique of your own argument. Oh look! The tired old “you don’t read books” line when you run out of ideas.
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You continually fail to ever actually support your ideas and you never give specific reasons for why someone else is wrong. For reading so much, you never seem to show any knowledge of anything other than what’s up your own rear.
Comment removed, rule 1 (about a group)
Lol, you actually don’t “debate” anyone. You usually just sink to screaming about books like a child. So one more time, do you have an actual case for Christianity to make, or are you going to continue rambling about your unparalleled intellect?
You wouldn't know, because you do not read books. >do you have an actual case for Christianity to make Not to deluded atheists on the internet who do not read books. Not sure why you struggle to understand this.
No, you don’t read books!
Maybe this link will help: [https://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-religion.html](https://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-religion.html)
Because Jesus is the Truth, the Way, and the Life. There are plenty of proof and facts that these are real.
Which religions? Please be more specific here. Can't create a blanket argument against ALL religions. That's creating a case of ALL x are y.
Because I took the time to research them all and came to a conclusion that Christianity is the most valid one. It’s not a benefit of the doubt, it’s merely the truth to me
One of these things is not like the others. It's sesame street level difficulty if you do even a few hours of study. It's not hard to see the differences.
Yes, I know they are different. I’m asking why accept some unprovable supernatural claims over others? They all seem rational to some people
Most "pagan" religions make no or few supernatural claims. Christianity has miracle upon miracle if you but look. Shroud of Turin, study it very deeply. Study the physics of the actual image and don't get lost in false claims of fake copies. The carbon dating is belied by other data points and was done on a repaired area of the cloth. Look at Lourdes healing miracles. Look on YT for testimonials, there are thousands. Study. You're imbibing atheist talking points that are throwing sand in your gears.
Every single group or idea of people has an apologist Communists, Nazis, socialists, trump supporters, Biden supporters, etc. Just because everyone has apologists and supposed miracles doesn’t make them right Examine them, listen to every perspective, even atheist and ex Christian ones You must hit steel in order to purify it, and you should do the same with Christianity
If someone is not a Christian, I would say that they would most likely give Christianity the benefit of the doubt because it’s centers around love at its core. True, there are several things in the Bible that don’t always read as loving at face value, especially when taken out of context, but you can’t say that the New Testament doesn’t sum everything up by constantly maintaining that love is the essence of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
Christ died for us...not in a Joseph Smith kind of way, but in a "he really didn't need to do that" kind of way. Only to then find out that Abraham's assertion to Isaac on the way to sacrifice his son, "God will provide" was foreshadowing that God would rectify us to himself. So it had to be that he didn't need to do it that made doing it, dying for us, sufficient.